DEC  3  im 


BR  85  .G45  1919 

Gillies,  Andrew,  1870-1942 

The  individualistic  gospel 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 
The  Minister  as  a  Man 


16mo.     Net,  35  cents. 


The  Individualistic  Gospel 

And  Other  Essays 


V 


By 
ANDREW  GILLIES 


DFO    3    1? 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
ANDREW  GILLIES 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTBB  FAOa 

Prefatory  Note 7 

I.    Concerning  "The  Challenge  of  the 

Church" 9 

11.    Of  Trying  to  Be  a  Christian 25 

III.  Shall    the    Severity    of    God    Be 

Preached? 37 

IV.  The  Impossibility  of  Neutrality.  . .     49 
V.    If  I  Were  a  Young  Minister 59 

VI.    The  Sin  of  Self-Deception 71 

VII.    The  Preacher  and  the  Demand  for 

A  Simple  Gospel 81 

VIII.    November  and  June  in  Religion  ...     93 
IX.    The   Need   of   a  New    Conception 

OF  God 101 

X.     The  Individualistic  Gospel  and  the 

Modern  Church 117 

XI.    The  Individualistic  Gospel  and  the 

Modern  Church   (Continued) 131 

XII.    The  Basic  Weakness  of  the  Modern 

Church 149 

XIII.    Salvation,  Individual  and  Social.  . .  167 
XIV.    The  Eternal  Gospel  and  the  Age 

of  Reconstruction 183 

Index 201 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  following  chapters  are  based  upon  articles 
which  appeared  in  The  Christian  Advocate,  The 
Methodist  Review,  and  The  Bibliotheca  Sacra  and 
are  published  in  their  present  form  with  the  kind 
consent  of  the  editors  of  those  periodicals.  Grate- 
ful acknowledgment  is  also  due  the  following  pub- 
lishers and  authors  for  permission  to  quote  at 
length  from  the  books  and  publications  named: 

The  Macmillan  Company :  Introduction  to  the 
Philosophy  of  Religion,  Principal  Caird ;  Religion 
as  Life,  Henry  Churchill  King;  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  Social  Question  and  Jesus  Christ  and  the  In- 
dividual, Francis  A.  Peabody;  Life  of  John  Wes- 
ley, Caleb  T.  Winchester;  The  Preacher  and  The 
Work  of  Preaching,  Arthur  S.  Hoyt. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons :  Outlines  of  Christian 
Theology,  William  Newton  Clarke ;  Sermons,  Hor- 
ace Bushnell;  Men  and  Books,  Austin  Phelps. 

Houghton  Mifflin  Company:  Religion  and 
Miracle,  George  A.  Gordon;  Life  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  A.  V.  G.  Allen ;  The  Christian  Ministry, 
Lyman  Abbott. 

The  Pilgrim  Press:  Lectures  on  Preaching, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

The  James  Clarke  Company,  London,  England, 
through  their  American  representatives.  The 
Pilgrim  Press :  Faith's  Certainties,  J.  Brierley. 

7 


8  PREFATORY  NOTE 

Henry  Holt  &  Co. :  On  Some  of  Life's  Ideals, 
William  James. 

Longmans,  Green  &  Co. :  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience,  William  James. 

The  Century  Company :  Reminiscences  of  Tol- 
stoy, Count  Ilya  Tolstoy. 

George  H.  Doran  Company :  Pulpit,  Platform, 
Parliament,  C.  Silvester  Home;  A  History  of 
Preaching,  Edwin  Charles  Dargan. 

The  H.  C.  Doran  Company:  Life  of  Thomas 
Chalmers,  Eraser. 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company :  The  Passion  for 
Souls,  J.  H.  Jowett;  The  Principles  of  Jesus, 
Robert  E.  Speer;  Letters  of  Samuel  Rutherford; 
Life  of  David  Livingstone. 

Harper  &  Bros. :  Short  History  of  the  English 
People,  Green ;  Works  of  Samuel  Taylor  Cole- 
ridge. 

E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. :  Lectures  on  Preaching,  the 
Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.D. 

The  Association  Press:  The  Social  Principles 
of  Jesus,  Walter  Rauschenbusch. 

Cassell  and  Company:  Can  We  Still  Follow 
Jesus?  Principal  Garvie. 

The  Atlantic  Monthly  Company :  The  Atlantic 
Monthly. 

The  Methodist  Book  Concern:  The  Methodist 
Review. 

The  Rochester  Post-Express  Company:  J.  Le 
Moyne  Dannar,  Dean  Charles  R.  Brown,  G.  H. 
Johnston  Ross,  Shailer  Mathews,  Lyman  Abbott, 
Charles  H.  Parkhurst  and  George  A.  Coe. 

For  all  fugitive  quotations  credit  has  been  given 
where  source  was  known.  A.  G. 


CHAPTER  I 

CONCERNING  "THE  CHALLENGE  OF  THE 
CHURCH" 


There  are  more  stoici  in  the  army  than  we  commonly  think. 
But  this  austerity  of  outlook,  even  if  it  were  within  the  ca- 
pacity of  everybody,  is  wholly  satisfying  to  nobody.  And 
the  same  must  be  said  of  a  resolute  cult  of  natural  beauty 
sustained  by  some  of  the  more  gifted  and  poetical  minds 
(like  Alan  Seeger  for  example),  with  a  certain  greatness  of  will 
which  still  fails  to  conceal  from  others  or  from  themselves  the 
heart  full  of  pain  beneath,  unreconciled  and  unconvinced. — 
William  E.  Hocking. 

The  Christian  life  is  the  life  of  Christ  in  the  believer.  There 
never  was  but  one  Christian  life  and  that  is  Christ's  life.  I 
am  not  playing  with  words.  If  anyone  chooses  to  say  that 
men  can  be  Christians  though  they  do  not  believe  in  Christ 
nor  accept  him  as  a  Saviour — very  well!  But  they  are  not 
Christians  in  the  New  Testament  sense  of  that  word. — J.  Le 
Moyne  Banner. 

The  more  literally  lost  you  are,  the  more  literally  you  are 
the  very  being  whom  Christ's  sacrifice  has  already  saved. 
Nothing  in  Catholic  theology,  I  imagine,  has  ever  spoken  to 
sick  souls  as  straight  as  this  message  from  Luther's  personal 
experience.  As  Protestants  are  not  all  sick  souls,  reliance  on 
what  Luther  exults  in  calling  the  dung  of  one's  merits,  the 
filthy  puddle  of  one's  own  righteousness,  has  come  to  the 
front  again  in  their  religion;  but  the  adequacy  of  his  view^of 
Christianity  to  the  deeper  wants  of  our  human  mental  struc- 
ture is  shown  by  its  wildfire  contagiousness  when  it  was  a 
new  and  quickening  thing. — William  James. 

Upon  a  rational  and  nonmiraculous  experience  no  church 
can  live,  and  a  nation  must  sin  to  die.  Nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  can  the  soul  live  on  mere  miracle,  on  the  merely  unin- 
telligible. The  church  can  exist  neither  on  a  classicism  nor  on 
a  romanticism,  but  on  a  new  creation.  It  can  live  only  upon 
what  created  it — upon  the  miracle  of  grace,  upon  the  evan- 
gelical experience  of  men  new  created  by  God's  word  and 
gift,  on  the  conversion  which,  as  Goodwin  says,  is  the  standing 
miracle  in  the  church.  .  .  .  The  church  must  choose  its  foun- 
dation principle  from  these  two  and  regulate  the  nature  of  its 
comprehension  accordingly — idealism  with  moral  atony  or 
redemption  with  conscience  in  command  of  the  social  life. — 
P.  T.  Forsyth. 


CHAPTER  I 

CONCERNING  "THE  CHALLENGE  OF  THE 
CHURCH" 

A  GREAT  deal  is  being  said  and  written  just  now 
about  "the  challenge  of  the  church."  And  there 
may  well  be,  for  there  is  a  subtle  and  invisible 
something  of  which  that  favorite  phrase  is  the 
best  possible  expression.  It  seems  to  me,  however, 
that  the  peril  in  the  situation  lies  in  the  failure 
to  understand  just  what  that  something  is. 
Usually  it  is  presented  as  an  unparalleled  oppor- 
tunity, the  compulsion  to  heroic  endeavor  created 
by  the  impending  task  of  world  reconstruction. 
And,  of  course,  that  is  true  as  far  as  it  goes,  but 
the  fact  is  that  it  does  not  go  far  enough.  Like 
a  great  deal  of  superficial  diagnosis,  it  deals  with 
symptoms,  not  causes.  The  real  challenge  deals 
with  causes  and,  rightly  understood,  gives  hope 
of  permanent  effects. 

Let  me  illustrate  what  I  mean.  One  morning 
I  picked  up  two  papers  from  my  den  table.  One 
was  The  Stars  and  Stripes,  the  official  publication 
of  the  American  Expeditionary  Force,  in  France. 
It  contained  an  editorial  entitled  "Salvation,"  in 
11 


12      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

which  the  editor,  after  berating  a  speaker  at  one 
of  the  halls  for  asking  those  of  his  hearers  who 
wanted  to  come  to  God  to  stand  up,  went  on  to 
say: 

"There  are  a  good  many  men  in  the  army  who 
hold  the  belief  that  a  man  who,  with  a  gun  in  his 
hand  and  a  smile  on  his  face,  takes  his  chance 
in  the  battle  line  in  this  war,  who  faces  death  for 
the  principles  for  which  we  are  fighting,  is  work- 
ing out  his  salvation  and  does  not  need  to  stand 
up  in  a  back  hall.  .  .  .  And  we  have  chaplains, 
men  in  army  khaki  and  steel  helmets  and  gas 
masks,  men  who  stand  at  our  side  in  the  front 
line — men  of  God,  if  ever  there  have  been — who 
not  only  hold,  but  were  the  first  to  express  this 
conviction." 

The  other  paper  was  The  Christian  Advocate, 
and  it  happened  to  contain  an  address  entitled 
"Advice  to  a  Soldier,"  written  by  John  Wesley, 
published  in  pamphlet  form  and  distributed  among 
the  British  army  camps  in  1743.  In  that  address 
the  human  founder  of  Methodism  lays  before  his 
readers  the  alternatives  of  salvation  or  damna- 
tion, heaven  or  hell,  and  in  no  uncertain  terms 
says  that  the  conditions  of  salvation  for  a  soldier 
on  the  battlefield  are  just  what  they  are  for  any 
other  man,  namely,  repentance  for  sin  and  faith 
in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

It  would  be  exceedingly  interesting  to  isolate 


"CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CHURCH"     18 

the  Stars  and  Stripes'  claim  and  examine  it 
frankly.  Does  the  act  of  fighting  in  a  good  cause 
automatically  put  a  man  on  good  terms  with 
God  and  assure  him  of  salvation,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  he  has  no  conscious  faith,  and  regardless 
of  his  personal  character?  Dr.  W.  E.  Hocking, 
of  Harvard,  deals  with  it  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  philosopher  and  refuses  to  be  caught  in  the 
rising  tide  of  emotionalism.     He  says : 

"We  shall  not  find  the  genuine  elements  of  hope 
in  the  situation  by  glossing  over  its  sobering 
traits,  nor  yet  by  succumbing  to  the  temptation 
to  say  that  the  soldier  is  subconsciously  religious. 
.  ,  ,  A  religion  that  a  Tnan  does  not  know  he  has 
is  of  no  importance/'    (The  italics  are  mine.) 

It  is  more  to  the  purpose,  however,  to  take  the 
editorial,  raw  as  it  is,  and  John  Wesley's  address, 
blunt  as  it  sounds  in  this  age  of  soft  phrases,  as 
representative  of  two  schools  of  thought  in  mod- 
em religion  and  two  ways  of  entering  upon  the 
vast  work  of  reconstruction  between  which  the 
church  must,  in  a  very  real  sense,  make  a  choice. 

The  term  "liberal"  is  just  as  good  as  any  other 
with  which  to  designate  the  one  school.  Probably 
one  ought  to  say  "schools,"  for  it  is  made  up  of 
a  series  of  intellectual  movements  rather  than  of 
one.  Its  rationalistic  aspect  has  been  well  de- 
scribed by  Dr.  J.  H.  Odell  in  the  words:  "Every 
minister  knows  that  from  the  days  of  Ferdinand 


14      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

Christian  Baur,  founder  of  the  Tubingen  school, 
down  to  the  latest  word  from  P.  W.  Schmiedel, 
there  has  been  a  patient,  indefatigable  and  relent- 
less effort  to  squeeze  every  possible  trace  of  the 
supernatural  from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments." 
Another  aspect  of  it  consists  of  the  radical  appli- 
cation of  the  evolutionary  hypothesis  to  the  moral 
and  spiritual  worlds,  substituting  an  upward 
thrust  of  all  things,  in  whose  beneficent  results 
every  man  shares,  for  a  world  of  contending  forces 
in  which  every  man's  destiny  depends  upon  his 
conscious  personal  choice.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  those  who  believe  in  both,  but  that  does  not 
materially  affect  the  situation.  Another  aspect 
has  been  greatly  intensified  by  the  war.  It  is 
represented  by  modern  sentimentalism,  the  re- 
fusal to  face  the  stern  facts  of  an  ethical  universe ; 
by  the  vague  feeling,  not  only  on  the  part  of  many 
enlisted  men,  but  multitudes  of  others,  that  "God 
will  not  be  too  hard  on  them,  whatever  happens." 
And  yet  another  aspect  is  found  in  the  attempted 
substitution  of  a  spiritual  idealism  for  historical 
Christianity.  In  the  words  of  a  writer  in  the 
Hibbert  Journal,  "Can  a  Christ  ideal,  identified 
with  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful,  be  sub- 
stituted for  the  historical  person  of  Jesus  Christ, 
without  fundamentally  overturning  Christianity 
as  a  spiritual  religion.?" 

The  other  position  is  what  has   always  been 


"CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CHURCH"  15 

known  as  evangelical  Christianity.  That  it  has 
undergone  radical  changes  since  Wesley's  time  is 
a  mere  truism.  Many  of  the  beliefs  of  a  prescien- 
tific  age  have  been  done  away  with  entirely.  Some 
of  the  basic  doctrines  have  been  greatly  modified 
in  form.  In  the  words  of  one  of  its  most  advanced 
exponents,  "We  now  see  creation,  revelation, 
atonement  and  salvation  as  processes  rather  than 
as  separate  facts,  though  there  are  great  out- 
standing facts  as  parts  of  the  process,  as  distinct 
registers  of  a  given  advance."  Moreover,  its 
spirit  and  method  are  fast  changing.  It  is  con- 
ceded that  truth  is  dynamic,  not  static;  that 
saving  faith  is  not  acquiescence  in  a  dogma  about 
Christ,  but  a  vital  trust  in  Christ,  and  that  there 
is  room  on  the  evangelical  foundation  for  wide 
differences  of  opinion  on  subsidiary  matters.  But 
the  essence  of  this  gospel  is  permanent.  Man  is 
not  merely  imperfect.  He  is  stained  by  sin  and 
held  blameworthy  by  a  holy  God,  who  has  written 
the  infinite  consequences  of  sin  into  the  very  fiber 
of  his  being.  Jesus  Christ  is  not  evolution's  finest 
product  or  the  world's  greatest  saint,  but  the 
world's  only  Saviour,  who  atoned  on  Calvary  for 
man's  sin.  Salvation  is  a  spiritual  rebirth, 
brought  about  by  conscious  repentance  and  faith, 
and,  conversely,  by  a  beneficent  work  of  grace 
wrought  in  the  personality  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
And  so  the  saved  man  is  not  the  same  man  grown 


16      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

to  nobler  proportions.  He  is  a  new  man,  living 
a  new  life  in  a  new  universe.  Those  are  but  im- 
perfect statements,  but  the  eternal  verities  for 
which  they  stand  constitute  the  heart  of  the 
gospel  on  the  evangelical  foundation,  that  part 
which  the  vicissitudes  of  time  cannot  change  or 
destroy. 

Now,  it  seems  perfectly  obvious  that  this  inter- 
pretation of  God,  Christ,  life,  and  human  destiny 
is  absolutely  contradictory  to  the  varying  inter- 
pretations of  the  intellectual  movement  or  move- 
ments at  which  we  have  glanced.  The  man  who 
believes  in  salvation  by  culture  or  the  unconscious 
assimilation. of  an  all-peil"vasive  spirit  of  goodness 
and  the  man  who  believes  in  salvation  by  a  definite 
and  conscious  adventure  of  faith,  by  personal 
oneness  with  a  personal  Saviour,  are  not  traveling 
the  same  intellectual  road,  with  one  just  a  bit  in 
advance  of  the  other.  They  are  traveling  in 
opposite  directions  and  between  them  is  "a  great 
gulf  fixed."  A  compromise  between  the  two  points 
of  view  is  as  impossible  as  it  was  between  the  two 
civilizations  so  lately  locked  in  a  death  grapple 
on  the  battle  fields  of  Europe  and  Asia.  And  yet 
the  astounding  thing  is  that  both  are  found  in 
adjoining  pews  and  in  neighboring  pulpits  of  the 
same  denomination.  "The  privilege  of  taking 
one's  creed  in  a  figurative  sense  has  done  yeoman 
service  in  the  cause  of  church  cohesion.     Those 


"CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CHURCH"     17 

who  regard  God  as  a  name,  solemn  style,  for  the 
fortunate  legality  of  events  in  nature,  or  for  the 
upward  trend  of  organic  evolution,  find  themselves 
joined  in  apparent  fellowship  with  those  for  whom 
God  is  still  a  personal  will,  and  so  forth."  Or, 
in  the  words  of  a  doughty  protagonist  of  intelli- 
gent evangelicalism:  "Two  streams  meet  in  our 
contemporary  Christianity,  and  however  they  may 
keep  the  same  bed  in  the  current  reach  of  history's 
stream,  they  do  not  blend." 

The  forced  option  presented  to  the  church  by 
this  anomalous  situation  seems  to  me  to  constitute 
the  real  challenge  with  which  the  church  is  met 
to-day.  Three  years  ago  P.  T.  Forsyth,  in  an 
article  in  the  Methodist  Review,  said:  "We  must 
decide  whether  our  faith  rests  on  a  new  creation 
or  an  immanent  evolution;  whether  the  Christian 
experience  is  a  thing  entirely  per  se  (and  autono- 
mous accordingly,  though  not  unrelated  to  the 
rest  of  experience),  or  whether  it  is  a  sectional 
product  of  spiritual  humanity  and  cosmic  evolu- 
tion at  an  ideal  height;  whether  it  be  produced 
by  the  direct,  mystic,  alogial  and  miraculous  ac- 
tion of  an  invasive  God  on  our  soul,  or  only  in- 
directly by  the  ordered  immanence  of  an  emerging 
God,  which  is  shared  by  the  whole  world  as  the 
area  of  his  high  causation." 

The  course  of  events  has  magnified  the  meaning 
and  broadened  the  scope  of  those  key  words,  "We 


18      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

must  decide."  Here  is  no  abstruse  question  in 
metaphysics,  to  be  decided  by  cloistered  saints, 
but  a  tragically  practical  question,  to  be  decided 
by  a  church  in  action.  The  very  unity  for  which 
we  pray  will  compel  a  decision,  for  that  unity, 
to  be  effective,  must  be  real  and  vital,  not  pre- 
tended. "You  never  can  substitute  rhetoric  for 
reality  without  important  results."  And  the 
world  in  chaos,  needing  deliverance,  makes  the 
option  compulsory.  The  crucial  question  con- 
cerning the  church  to-day  is  not  "Will  she  under- 
take the  colossal  task  of  attempting  to  furnish 
a  solid  foundation  for  the  new  social  order?"  but 
"How  will  she  undertake  it.''"  With  vague  senti- 
mentalizing and  meaningless  moral  platitudes  or 
with  "faith's  certainties,"  however  unwelcome  they 
may  be  to  some  on  their  sterner  side.?  With  a 
modernized  paganism  or  a  plan  of  salvation 
rooted  in  God's  recorded  revelation  of  himself 
and  justified  by  historical  experience?  With  a 
gospel  of  social  duty  or  a  gospel  of  individual 
regeneration?  With  the  comfortable  assurance 
of  a  Universal  Goodness  or  an  urgent  summons 
to  choose  between  the  narrow  way  that  leads  to 
life  and  the  broad  way  that  ends  in  spiritual 
death?  With  glittering  generalities  about  a  uni- 
versal "immortality"  or  the  plain  preaching  of 
heaven,  hell,  and  the  Judgment?  With  a  mess 
of  twaddle  about  a  "spirituality"  that  means  any- 


"CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CHURCH"     19 

thing  from  aesthetic  idealism  to  pleasurable  nerv- 
ous reaction  to  fine  weather  or  the  sturdy  an- 
nouncement of  justification  in  its  truest  and  most 
vital  sense?  With  a  Christ  ideal,  freed  from  all 
connection  with  God's  recorded  disclosure  of  him- 
self, or  the  passionate  presentation  of  an  histori- 
cal Jesus  who  is  also  the  eternal  Christ?  With 
an  offer  to  imperfect  men  of  salvation  by  general 
moral  improvement  or  an  offer  to  lost  and  sinful 
men  of  salvation  by  faith  in  an  atoning  Saviour? 

That  is  the  challenge  of  the  church,  as  I  see  it. 
Nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  dismal  Jeremiads  con- 
cerning the  result  if  the  church  fails  to  meet  the 
issue  squarely.  "The  course  of  events  is  apt  to 
show  itself  humorously  indifferent  to  the  reputa- 
tion of  prophets."  But  a  brief  appeal  to  history 
may  be  both  illuminating  and  stimulating. 

The  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  con- 
stituted the  hideous  climax  to  a  long  period  of 
decadence  in  religion  and  morals.  The  whole 
thing  had  its  roots  in  the  wanton  prostitution  of 
the  Christian  doctrine  and  ethics.  "In  what 
passed  for  the  Christian  religion  fearful  abuses 
in  practice  and  wretched  corruptions  in  doctrine 
went  hand  in  hand  with  superstitions  that  might 
well  seem  incredible."  Martin  Luther  appealed  to 
the  church  to  meet  the  situation  by  cleansing  her 
own  Augean  stables.  His  answer  was  abuse  and 
persecution.       In     consequence     the    Protestant 


W      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

Reformation  had  its  birth  and  the  church  was  rent 
in  twain.  That  movement,  in  its  initial  stages, 
was  marred  by  serious  blunders,  but  two  things 
concerning  it  are  worthy  of  note.  The  first  is 
that  it  ushered  in  a  new  era  in  Christian  history. 
The  second  is  that,  at  its  heart,  it  was  a  return 
to  the  New  Testament  as  the  source  of  doctrine 
and  to  salvation  by  faith  as  the  basis  of  human 
hope.  With  all  its  faults  Protestantism  became 
dynamic  because  it  was  born  of  the  doctrines  of 
grace. 

The  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  con- 
stituted a  period  of  decadence  in  morals  and  reli- 
gion. In  Great  Britain  a  rotten  church  stood  as 
the  impotent  bulwark  of  a  rotten  social  order. 
Deism  and  debauchery  went  hand  in  hand  in  the 
church  and  out  of  it.  One  historian  went  so  far 
as  to  say:  "All  that  is  restrictively  Christian  or 
that  is  peculiar  to  Christ  is  waived  and  banished 
and  despised."  An  ordained  priest  in  the  Estab- 
lished Church  was  given  the  supreme  blessing  of 
a  conscious  experience  of  Jesus  Christ  as  his 
Saviour.  A  heart  strangely  warmed  resulted  in 
a  personality  made  colossal.  True  to  the  last  to 
the  church  of  which  he  was  a  part,  he  besought 
her  to  sanctify  herself  in  teaching  and  in  practice. 
Her  answer  was  to  close  her  doors  in  his  face  and 
refuse  his  unlovely  converts  a  place  at  her  altars. 
Then,  and  then  only,  the  Wesleyan  revival  became 


"CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CHURCH'*     21 

a  separatist  movement,  and  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land lived  to  mourn  the  fact  that  she  had  been  so 
shortsighted.  Concerning  that  movement  two 
things  are  to  be  noted.  The  first  is  that  it  changed 
the  channel  of  Christian  history.  The  second  is 
that  it  was  a  return  to  the  supernatural  content 
of  the  New  Testament  and  the  supernatural  ele- 
ment in  Christian  experience.  To  the  barrenness 
of  deism  and  the  partialism  of  Calvinistic  theology 
John  Wesley  opposed  the  vast  truths  of  free  grace 
and  salvation  by  faith,  and  to  a  formal  and  un- 
ethical religion  he  opposed  the  conscious  experi- 
ence of  peace  with  God  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ. 

The  early  years  of  the  twentieth  century  con- 
stituted a  period  of  decadence  in  morals  and  reli- 
gion. Alfred  Russel  Wallace  went  so  far  as  to 
write,  "It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  our  whole 
system  of  society  is  rotten  from  top  to  bottom 
and  the  social  environment  as  a  whole,  in  relation 
to  our  possibilities  and  claims,  is  the  worst  that 
the  world  has  ever  seen."  That  period  was 
marked  by  a  growing  movement  outside  the  church 
toward  the  rejection  of  all  religion  and  a  growing 
movement  inside  the  church  toward  a  rejection 
of  historical  Christianity.  Just  before  he  died 
Brierley  recovered  from  his  exceeding  optimism, 
conceded  the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  and  said 
that  the  whole  thing  was  due  to  the  loss  from  the 
church  of  "the  essence,  the  soul,  the  root  of  the 


22      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

evangelical  gospel."  That  had  gone  and  with  it 
the  spiritual  dynamic  and  conquering  faith  of 
Protestant  Christianity.  Therefore,  said  that 
keen  student  of  contemporaneous  history,  the  only 
way  to  recover  that  lost  power  and  save  the  world 
from  irretrievable  disaster  is  for  the  church  to 
retrace  her  steps.  "The  things,  the  powers  by 
which  our  fathers  won  back  England  to  religion 
are  there  intact  and  need  only  to  be  used  to  win 
a  new  victory."  Whether  or  not  we  agree  with 
Brierley  as  to  the  exact  content  of  that  essential 
gospel  is  aside  from  the  question.  The  fact  re- 
mains that  once  more,  in  a  time  of  crisis  and 
trial,  the  Church  of  God  has  been  told  which  direc- 
tion she  must  take  to  recover  her  own  spiritual 
health  and  to  minister  effectively  to  a  world  in 
moral  chaos.  Nobody  wants  a  return  to  outworn 
dogmas  or  a  bootless  attempt  to  resuscitate  long 
dead  formulae.  Everybody  realizes  that  the  gospel, 
to  be  effective,  must  be  restated  in  terms  of  life 
and  made  manifest  by  an  experience  charged  with 
reality.  But  again  the  Church  of  God  can  go 
forward  only  by  going  back  to  Calvary  and  to 
him  who  accomplished  death  thereon,  to  the  soul 
of  the  New  Testament  doctrine  and  experience. 

Will  the  church  be  wise  enough  to  learn  by  her 
own  mistakes.?  Will  she  see  the  crossroads  at 
which  she  stands  once  more  and  choose  the  Via 
Dolorosa  .'^     Will  her  leaders  remain  unmoved  by 


"CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CHURCH"  23 

the  sloppy  sentimentalism  that  threatens  to  engulf 
the  whole  race  and  the  inane  demands  for  the 
destruction  of  all  dogma?  Will  they,  with  fear- 
less unconcern  as  to  consequences  and  a  pas- 
sionate manifestation  of  the  Christ's  spirit,  pro- 
claim to  all  mankind,  soldier  and  civilian,  intel- 
lectualist,  social  idealist  and  plain  John  Smith, 
Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour  from  sin  and  the  high 
privilege  of  salvation  by  vital  faith  in  him?  Not 
with  "a  zeal  for  pure  doctrine,"  but  with  that 
holier  mood,  "the  passion  for  saving  faith,"  will 
the  Church  of  God  move  steadily  forward  to  the 
dual  goal  of  vital  Christian  unity  and  world  vic- 
tory for  our  Redeeming  Lord?  I  do  not  know. 
Nobody  knows.  But  I  do  know  that,  though 
history  does  not  repeat  itself,  it  does  furnish  some 
striking  parallels. 


CHAPTER  II 
OF  TRYING  TO  BE  A  CHRISTIAN 


I  beseech  you,  in  the  Lord  Jesus,  beware  of  unsound  work 
in  the  matter  of  your  salvation.  Strike  hands  with  Christ, 
that  thereafter  there  may  be  no  happiness  to  you  but  Christ, 
no  hunting  for  anything  but  Christ,  no  bed  at  night,  when 
death  cometh,  but  Christ. — Samuel  Rutherford. 

Not  many  weeks  intervened  when  I  awoke  from  a  sound 
sleep  at  break  of  day,  conscious  that  I  was  a  Christian.  That 
was  fifty-six  years  ago.  From  that  time  to  this,  Jesus  Christ 
has  been  my  personal  Saviour. — Jacob  Mills,  in  a  personal 
letter  to  the  author. 

The  very  first  pulsation  of  the  spiritual  life,  when  we  rightly 
apprehend  its  significance,  is  the  indication  that  the  division 
between  the  Spirit  and  its  object  has  vanished,  that  the  ideal 
has  become  real,  that  the  finite  has  reached  its  goal  and  be- 
come suffused  with  the  presence  and  life  of  the  Infinite. — 
Principal  Caird. 

This  mighty  life  of  God  in  the  soul  does  not,  however,  work 
as  a  blind  force,  compelling  us  ignorantly  or  involuntarily  to 
act  like  Christ.  On  the  contrary,  the  walking  like  him  must 
come  as  the  result  of  a  deliberate  choice,  sought  in  strong 
desire,  accepted  of  a  living  will. — Andrew  Murray. 

To  become  a  Christian  is  to  have  a  new  spiritual  life  enter 
the  human  soul,  as  when  a  seed  with  its  living  germ  is  planted 
in  the  soil.  To  grow  as  a  Christian  is  to  have  this  new  life, 
the  very  life  of  Christ  in  us,  increase  in  strength  and  energy, 
expelling  the  evil  of  the  old  nature  by  the  force  of  its  own 
good,  and  ultimately  bringing  the  affections,  the  thoughts, 
the  purposes,  all  the  activities  of  the  soul  into  conformity  to 
Christ.  The  Christian,  in  a  word,  is  born,  not  made. — J.  Le 
Moyne  Banner, 


CHAPTER  II 
OF  TRYING  TO  BE  A  CHRISTIAN 

Is  there  such  a  thing  as  "trying  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian," or,  as  it  is  usually  put,  "trying  to  lead  the 
Christian  life"  ?  Usage  answers  in  the  affirmative, 
for  the  expression  is  common,  in  both  the  inter- 
rogative and  declarative  forms.  One  cannot 
travel  far  in  a  distinctly  religious  environment 
without  hearing  some  men  asked  if  they  will  try 
to  be  Christians  and  others  account  for  themselves 
by  saying  that  they  are  trying.  And  modern 
thought  would  seem  to  sanction  the  usage,  for 
the  gospel  as  preached  to-day  is  preeminently  a 
call  to  service.  Christianity  is  looked  upon  as 
a  program  of  social  readjustments,  an  ethical 
ideal  to  be  attained.  Even  our  own  church  asks 
of  the  candidate  for  admission,  "Will  you  en- 
deavor to  lead  a  holy  life?"  And  the  candidate 
is  expected  to  answer,  "I  will  endeavor  so  to  do, 
the  Lord  being  my  helper." 

The  question  as  included  in  the  church  ritual 
is  scripturally  correct  and  eminently  wise,  for  it 
is  but  another  form  of  that  which  Henry  Drum- 
mond  so  persistently  put  to  the  students  at  Edin- 


28      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

burgh — "Gentlemen,  do  you  mean  business  ?"  But 
the  phrase,  especially  as  used  by  so  many  to 
explain  this  relation  to  God  and  his  kingdom, 
may  well  arouse  suspicion  and  provoke  inquiry. 

It  is  significant  that  the  New  Testament  makes 
use  of  no  term  or  combination  of  terms  which  can 
be  so  translated.  Jesus  never  asked  anybody  to 
try  to  follow  him  and  had  scant  courtesy  for  those 
who  suggested  a  discipleship  falling  short  of  com- 
plete self-renunciation.  Furthermore,  by  repeated 
statement  and  insistent  emphasis,  he  made  it  clear 
that  the  Christian  life  is  not  merely  an  ideal  to 
be  attained,  but  an  inner  spiritual  transforma- 
tion to  be  experienced.  To  use  his  own  symbol 
(flung  at  a  philosopher  who  came  to  him  as  to 
an  authoritative  teacher  of  an  exalted  ethic),  it 
is  a  spiritual  rebirth,  the  making  of  a  mortal  into 
an  immortal  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It 
is  true  that  this  change  is  elsewhere  called  "con- 
version," a  turning  around,  thus  emphasizing  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  human  as  well  as  a  divine 
element  in  the  transaction,  but  even  that  means 
primarily  not  a  changed  course  of  conduct,  but 
a  changed  attitude  toward  God.  It  means  love 
instead  of  indifl'erence  or  hate,  faith  instead  of 
unbelief,  submission  instead  of  rebellion. 

In  this,  as  in  all  else,  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles 
are  in  perfect  accord  with  the  Gospels.  When 
those  who  were  cut  to  the  heart  on  the  day  of 


OF  TRYING  TO  BE  A  CHRISTIAN     29 

Pentecost  cried,  "What  shall  we  do?"  Peter  re- 
plied in  no  uncertain  terms:  "Repent  and  be 
baptized,  every  one  of  jou,  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ,  unto  the  remission  of  sins,  and  ye  shall 
receive  the  gift  of  the  Holv  Spirit."  Whether 
approaching  the  matter  from  the  legal  or  the 
biological  standpoint,  Paul's  conclusion  is  always 
the  same:  "By  grace  are  ye  saved,  through  faith, 
and  that  not  of  yourselves.  It  is  the  gift  of  God." 
Drawing  a  line  of  demarcation  which  must  be  dis- 
concerting to  the  scoffer  at  the  "twice-bom" 
throng,  John  says,  "He  that  hath  the  Son  hath 
the  life."  The  solemn  warnings  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  are  to  the  end  that  believers  shall 
stop  shilly-shallying  and  make  ultimate  salvation 
absolutely  sure  by  unwavering  faith  in  and  devo- 
tion to  him  who  made  atonement  for  their  sins. 
And  even  James,  in  all  his  talk  about  works,  is 
but  emphasizing  the  fact  that  a  man's  faith  must 
be  vital,  or  his  so-called  Christianity  is  but  de- 
spicable hypocrisy. 

Of  course  there  are  passages  aplenty  affirming 
that  man's  part  in  this  divine-human  transaction 
is  active  as  well  as  passive,  that  the  Christian 
life  is  a  pilgrimage  as  well  as  a  possession,  that 
there  is  hard  fighting  all  along  the  road,  and  that 
many  who  start  bravely  fail  to  reach  the  goal, 
but  all  such  are  complementary  and  not  contra- 
dictory to  the  truth  as  already  stated.     Jesus' 


30      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

solemn  advice  to  "strive  to  enter  in  at  the  strait 
gate"  is  but  a  much-needed  warning  that  only  he 
who  is  so  dead  in  earnest  about  salvation  and 
discipleship  that  everything  else  becomes  as  noth- 
ing can  hope  to  become  a  Christian  at  all.  In 
other  words,  the  second  birth  differs  from  the 
first  in  that  it  is  voluntary  and  that  the  one  bom 
must  often  travail  and  suffer  agony.  The  state- 
ment, "He  that  shall  endure  unto  the  end,  the 
same  shall  be  saved,"  is  but  one  of  a  multitude 
of  assertions  that  salvation,  in  the  case  of  the 
Christian,  is  not  only  past  but  future  and  that 
victory  is  not  assured  until  the  spirit  sloughs  off 
the  flesh.  Saint  Paul's  injunction  to  "work  out 
your  own  salvation,"  is  a  reminder  that  individual 
salvation  has  vast  social  implications,  and  the 
apostle  does  not  pause  until  he  reminds  his  readers 
further  that,  even  in  the  carrying  out  of  that 
task,  "it  is  God  that  worketh  in  you  both  to  will 
and  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure."  And  those 
puissant  promises  to  the  overcomer,  contained  in 
the  Apocalypse,  are  made  to  him  who  meets  life's 
tests,  not  as  a  poor  mortal,  trying  to  climb  "the 
steep  and  thorny  road  to  heaven,"  but  as  "a  new 
creature"  in  Christ  Jesus,  strengthened  by  the 
resistless  might  of  an  unconquerable  God. 

I  know  of  nobody  who  has  put  this  truth  more 
succinctly  than  did  Principal  Caird,  in  his  Intro- 
duction to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion.     He  says : 


OF  TRYING  TO  BE  A  CHRISTIAN     31 

"Oneness  of  mind  and  will  with  the  divine  mind 
and  will  is  not  the  future  hope  and  aim  of  religion, 
but  its  very  beginning  and  birth  in  the  soul.  .  .  . 
It  is  true  indeed  that  the  religious  life  is  pro- 
gressive; but,  understood  in  the  light  of  the  fore- 
going idea,  religious  progress  is  not  toward,  but 
within  the  sphere  of  the  infinite." 

In  aU  this  there  is  more  than  a  splitting  of 
hairs  or  the  making  of  a  distinction  without  a 
difference.  The  modern  change  of  emphasis  from 
Christianity  as  a  mystical  something  which  Jesus 
Christ  wrought  for  and  works  in  man  to  Chris- 
tianity as  a  something  or  series  of  somethings 
which  man  does  for  God  has  not  proved  an  un- 
mixed blessing.  To  use  a  trite  phrase,  a  crying 
need  of  this  crucial  time  is  the  certainty  that 
springs  from  a  definite  faith  and  the  victory 
born  of  a  conscious  spiritual  experience.  Popular 
opinion  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  there 
is  a  definite  line  of  cleavage  between  the  Christian 
and  the  non-Christian.  A  man  is  in  the  kingdom 
of  God  or  he  is  not.  He  has  accepted  Jesus  Christ 
as  his  Master  or  he  still  belongs  to  the  devil.  At 
first  he  may  be  a  "carnal"  Christian,  as  Saint 
Paul  says,  but  he  is  nevertheless  a  Christian.  He 
may  fall  again  and  again  in  his  conflict  with 
tyrannical  habits,  as  did  Jerry  McAuley,  but 
if  he  repent  and  believe,  he  will  rise  again  and 
become  "more  than  conqueror." 


32      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

Moreover,  a  man  becomes  a  Christian,  not  by 
"trying,"  but  by  believing,  by  repentance  and 
faith.  "This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye  believe 
on  him  whom  he  hath  sent."  It  is  necessary  to 
bring  forth  fruits  meet  for  repentance,  but  it  is 
first  necessary  to  repent.  When  Charles  G. 
Finney  went  about  among  those  who  were  seeking 
God,  he  asked  not,  "Will  you  try?"  but  "Have 
you  surrendered.'^"  Man's  first  victory  over  self 
and  the  world  is  capitulation  to  God.  It  is  of 
more  than  passing  significance  that,  in  Bunyan's 
immortal  allegory,  the  beginning  of  Christian's 
journey  as  "pilgrim  of  the  infinite"  was  marked 
by  the  passage  through  the  strait  gate  and  the 
rolling  away  of  his  burden  at  the  foot  of  the  cross. 

Making  every  concession  to  native  humility  and 
the  wisdom  of  urging  the  discouraged  and  fallen 
to  "try  again,"  it  is  well  to  remember  that  "un- 
discourageable  faith"  is  the  only  basis  of  spiritual 
recovery  and  assurance  of  ultimate  victory.  "I 
am  trying  to  be  a  Christian"  smells  too  strongly 
of  a  discipleship  with  mental  reservations  or  a 
timidity  that  spells  defeat.  "This  is  the  victory 
that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith."  Saint 
John  did  not  write,  "we  are  trying,"  but  "we 
know,"  and  "now  are  we  the  sons  of  God."  Saint 
Paul  did  not  say,  "I  am  trying."  He  said,  "I 
am  crucified  with  Christ,"  and  "I  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ  which  strengtheneth  me." 


OF  TRYING  TO  BE  A  CHRISTIAN     33 

For  years  John  Wesley  tried  to  live  the  Chris- 
tian life.  By  fasting  and  prayer  he  endeavored 
to  find  peace  and  he  touched  two  continents  in 
his  efforts  to  do  the  will  of  God.  Both  prayers 
and  labors  seemed  fruitless,  for  he  found  no  rest 
and  accomplished  but  little.  But  then  came  that 
memorable  meeting  of  the  Moravians  during  which 
he  felt  his  heart  strangely  warmed  and  attained 
the  consciousness  that  he  had  passed  from  death 
into  life.  Whether  or  not  you  accept  the  state- 
ment that  that  experience  constituted  his  real  con- 
version, certain  historical  facts  cannot  be  gain- 
said. From  that  day  unutterable  peace  filled  his 
heart  and  almost  unparalleled  results  marked  his 
ministry.  He  became  a  preacher  of  extraordinary 
power,  the  leader  of  a  new  Reformation,  a  Chris- 
tian statesman  of  astonishing  wisdom  and  fore- 
sight, God's  chosen  agent  in  the  accomplishment 
of  untold  good. 

I  cannot  help  thinking  of  an  incident  which 
occurred  in  the  West  some  years  ago.  A  secre- 
tary of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
was  talking  with  a  prominent  young  business  man 
about  the  things  of  the  Spirit,  and  at  last  asked 
him  point  blank  if  he  would  not  become  a  Chris- 
tian. 

"Well,  I'll  try,"  answered  the  young  man. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  try,"  said  the  secretary; 
"I  want  you  to  trust." 


34      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

His  companion  saw  the  difference  at  once. 
Realizing  that  there  is  a  vast  difference  between 
the  endeavor  to  attain  an  ideal  and  the  opening 
of  one's  heart  by  faith  to  the  operative  influences 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  he  "surrendered,"  committed 
his  all  to  a  faithful  Creator,  and  became  a  Chris- 
tian man  of  marked  spiritual  power  and  wide 
influence. 


CHAPTER  III 

SHALL  THE  SEVERITY  OF  GOD  BE 
PREACHED? 


The  motive  of  fear  plays  no  such  part  with  us  as  it  did  with 
our  fathers.  But  it  has  its  place,  even  though  a  small  one. 
As  to  allowing  it  in  this  present  life  but  disallowing  it  as  to 
the  future,  it  can  only  be  said  that  such  a  distinction  is  ut- 
terly unreasonable.  If  it  is  right  for  a  man  to  remember 
that  to-day's  sin  will  bring  its  penalty  to-morrow,  it  is  right 
for  him  to  remember  that  the  same  principle  reaches  on  into 
the  future  life.  Of  course  there  is  such  a  thing  as  craven  and 
contemptible  fear.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  few  people  will 
shun  sin  for  fear  of  future  punishment  who  do  not  also  shun 
it  on  other  and  stronger  grounds.  But  all  men  have  both  a 
right  and  a  duty  to  consider  the  consequences  of  sin  and  of 
righteousness. — Robert  E.  Speer. 

If  we  imagine  that  this  change  (from  royal  to  parental  au- 
thority) detracts  from  the  seriousness  of  the  relation  in  which 
men  stand  to  God,  we  have  not  understood  the  Master.  The 
holiness  of  God  is  scarcely  mentioned  in  direct  terms  in  the 
gospel,  but  is  the  underlying  fact  of  all  that  Jesus  said.  It 
is  always  both  implied  and  apparent  that  God  is  all  pure, 
that  sin  is  contrary  to  his  nature  and  will,  and  that  to  him 
men  in  their  sinfulness  are  responsible.  Above  all  others, 
Jesus  has  made  God  known  as  the  enemy  of  sin  in  the  world. 
Above  all  others,  he  has  taught  how  terrible  a  thing  it  is  to 
cast  in  one's  lot  with  sin  and  identify  oneself  with  its  destiny, 
and  all  because  God  is  what  he  is.  His  reproofs  of  selfishness, 
insincerity,  heartlessness,  falseness  before  God  and  wrong 
toward  men,  are  unparalleled  in  their  severity.  His  warn- 
ings of  doom  to  those  who  persist  in  evil  have  burned  them- 
selves into  the  memory  and  convictions  of  Christendom. 
The  holiness  of  the  Father  is  as  terrible  to  an  evil  will  as  it  is 
glorious  and  lovely  to  the  loyal  heart. — William  Newton 
Clarke. 


CHAPTER  III 

SHALL  THE  SEVERITY  OF  GOD  BE 
PREACHED? 

In  an  article  entitled  "Methodism  Fifty  Years 
Ago  and  Now,"  published  in  the  Methodist  Re- 
view of  September-October,  1917,  Dr.  Tuttle 
says:  "Methodists  fifty  years  ago  persistently 
preached  the  terrors  of  the  Judgment  and  an 
eternal  hell.  Probably  all  our  preachers  still  re- 
tain their  belief  in  the  dreadful  consequences  of 
unrepented  sin  continuing  beyond  the  grave.  They 
would  not  expunge  the  doctrine  from  our  stand- 
ards of  faith.  But  most  of  them  have  laid  it  away 
in  the  attic  of  their  intellect,  an  antiquated 
memory  of  the  olden  times,  to  be  brought  out 
occasionally  for  exhibition.  Very  few  of  our 
pulpits  are  blackened  with  the  smoke  or  scented 
with  the  brimstone  of  a  fiery  hell." 

That  is  an  absolutely  correct  statement  of  fact. 
The  pulpits  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
are  silent  on  those  solemn  themes,  and  so  are 
the  pulpits  of  all  Methodism  and  of  all  the  other 
evangelical  churches.  The  reaction  from  Calvin- 
ism is  complete.  The  leaven  of  the  preaching  of 
Freeman,    Channing,    Ripley,    and    Parker    has 

37 


38      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

leavened  the  whole  lump,  and  "a  more  liberal 
spirit"  now  saturates  the  orthodox  churches.  One 
might  widen  the  horizon  and,  without  fear  of  con- 
tradiction, affirm  that  the  intellectual  movement 
which  has  wrought  this  startling  change  is  a  part 
of  or  closely  related  to  another  which  has  swung 
the  emphasis  of  both  preaching  and  thinking 
from  the  future  to  the  present.  Until  recently, 
at  least,  the  mind  of  Christendom  has  been  so 
concentrated  on  "the  life  that  now  is"  as  to 
obliterate  any  serious  thought  about  "the  life 
that  is  to  come."  Modern  preaching  shows  it. 
Our  hymn  books  show  it.  Literature  shows  it. 
In  the  words  of  a  writer  in  the  Atlantic,  "Mediaeval 
Christianity  certainly  went  mad  over  heaven  and 
hell;  but  who  now  neglects  Demeter's  green  earth 
for  apocalyptic  visions.''"  It  would  seem,  how- 
ever, as  if  the  time  were  ripe  for  a  serious  study 
of  the  situation  to  which  Dr.  Tuttle  has  called 
attention.  The  case  of  the  unorthodox  or  non- 
orthodox  preacher  is  simple.  He  does  not  preach 
the  Judgment  Day  and  an  eternal  hell  simply 
because  he  does  not  believe  in  them.  But  the 
case  of  the  orthodox  presents  complications. 
Why  is  he  persistently  silent  about  things  in 
which  he  still  believes?  Why  has  he  relegated 
to  the  attic  of  his  intellect  certain  truths  (I 
do  not  think  of  them  as  doctrines)  which  consti- 
tute an  integral  part  of  revelation  as  he  knows  it.f* 


THE  SEVERITY  OF  GOD  39 

To  say  that  the  people  are  not  interested  in  them 
has  no  bearing.  Most  of  "the  people"  are  not 
interested  in  God  or  the  salvation  of  their  own 
souls.  The  prophesying  of  smooth  things  is  not 
the  business  of  the  true  prophet.  Such  a  silence 
can  have  only  two  satisfactory  explanations: 
either  the  preaching  of  "the  terrors  of  the  Judg- 
ment and  an  eternal  hell"  is  not  authorized  or  it  is 
not  essential.  In  other  words,  it  is  not  included 
in  the  divine  commission  to  "preach  the  gospel" 
or  it  is  not  necessary  in  the  work  of  bringing  men 
to  repentance  and  righteousness.  Of  course  the 
difference  between  those  two  things  is  rhetorical 
rather  than  real,  but  it  will  help  in  our  thinking 
to  approach  the  matter  from  those  two  angles. 

The  New  Testament  still  constitutes  the 
preacher's  most  fruitful  field  and  safest  monitor 
in  his  homiletical  work.  After  all  the  construc- 
tive results  of  the  historico-critical  method  have 
been  conceded  and  the  proof-text  method  dis- 
carded as  obsolete,  the  Bible,  and  especially  that 
part  of  it  which  contains  the  record  of  God's 
revelation  of  himself  in  Jesus  Christ,  remains  to 
the  preacher  a  lamp  unto  his  feet  and  a  light 
unto  his  path.  Studied  prayerfully,  it  not  only 
helps  him  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world 
in  his  eager  search  after  truth,  but  it  also  guides 
him  in  the  problem  of  emphasis  in  the  presentation 
of  that  truth.    I  always  have  believed  and  always 


40      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

will  believe  that  any  historical  fact  or  aspect  of 
the  truth  which  is  given  scant  consideration  there 
need  not  be  emphasized  in  creed  or  sermon,  and, 
by  the  same  token,  one  that  is  writ  large  on  those 
inspired  pages  may  safely  be  given  great  emphasis 
and  importance  in  the  proclamation  of  the  "good 
news."  If  that  is  conceded,  it  becomes  apparent 
that  the  modern  evangelical  preacher  is  guilty  of 
the  very  crime  of  which  the  Christian  Scientist 
and  the  Unitarian  are  accused,  namely,  the  dis- 
torting of  the  truth  by  making  use  of  a  carefully 
expurgated  edition  of  the  New  Testament.  We 
have  here  no  teaching  whose  validity  is  based 
upon  one  or  two  obscure  verses  of  Scripture.  The 
outstanding  fact  about  the  body  of  inspired  lit- 
erature, without  which  the  preacher  would  become 
a  mere  lecturer,  is  not  that  it  contains  so  many 
texts  which  make  use  of  the  word  translated  hell, 
or  so  many  which  refer  to  the  Judgment  Day; 
it  is  not  even  that  Jesus  proclaimed  the  doom  of 
the  persistently  rebellious  in  terms  more  terrible 
than  those  flung  by  the  relentless  Edwards  at  the 
heads  of  cowering  sinners,  or  that  in  its  presenta- 
tion of  the  wrath  of  God  the  Apocalypse  surpasses 
the  picturesque  vehemence  of  Billy  Sunday:  it  is 
that  the  whole  New  Testament  is  a  continuous 
series  of  contrasts  between  the  blessedness  of 
righteousness  and  the  misery  of  sin,  the  splendor 
of  Eternal  Day  and  the  horror  of  the  "outer 


THE  SEVERITY  OF  GOD  41 

darkness."  If  you  are  looking  for  the  "trend 
of  Scripture,"  there  it  is.  The  modern  preacher 
may  keep  silent  about  the  dark  side  of  human 
life  and  destiny,  but  the  Master  Preacher  and 
that  band  of  intrepid  men  who  turned  the  world 
upside  down  did  not.  He  who  breathed  "Come 
unto  me"  also  cried  "Woe  unto  thee."  The 
"wrath  of  the  Lamb"  and  "the  blood  of  the  Lamb" 
are  both  Scripture  phrases.  The  parable  of  the 
prodigal  son  and  the  parable  of  Dives  and  Laza- 
rus lie  side  by  side.  The  promise  of  "rest"  to 
those  who  die  in  the  Lord  is  followed  by  the  ter- 
rible statement  concerning  the  finally  lost  that 
"they  have  no  rest  day  nor  night."  The  same 
epistle  which  exalts  the  sacrificial  Saviourhood 
of  Jesus  bristles  with  statements  of  the  irrep- 
arable harm  that  awaits  the  unrepentant  and 
apostate.  Out  from  the  same  pages  where  glow 
the  repeated  assurance  that  "God  is  love"  blaze 
the  repeated  announcements,  in  one  form  or  an- 
other, that  "our  God  is  a  consuming  fire."  The 
same  commission  which  enjoins  the  preacher  to 
comfort  bids  him  also  warn,  and  it  would  be  only 
a  waste  of  time  to  ask,  "Warn  of  what.'*"  Verily 
the  Word  of  God  is  a  two-edged  sword. 

In  considering  the  question  as  to  the  effects 
of  preaching  the  severity  of  God  there  are  two 
sources  of  information:  the  findings  of  the  psy- 
chologists and  the  pages  of  church  history.    Both 


4a      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

are  accessible  to  him  who  would  know.  The  stock 
argument  against  such  preaching  is  that  it  is  an 
appeal  to  fear,  and  that  the  appeal  to  fear  is 
psychologically  wrong  and  spiritually  injurious. 
The  temptation  arises  to  answer,  "Then  the  New 
Testament  is  a  blunder  from  the  scientific  stand- 
point"; but  it  is  manifestly  better  to  approach 
the  matter  with  directness.  When  the  doctors 
disagree  seek  out  the  one  who  really  ought  to 
know  and  believe  what  he  tells  you.  And  who 
knows  more  about  psychology  than  William 
James .'^    Yet  he  says: 

"Great  passions  annul  the  ordinary  inhibitions 
set  by  conscience,  and,  conversely,  of  all  the 
criminal  human  beings,  the  false,  cowardly, 
sensual,  or  cruel  persons  who  actually  live,  there 
is  perhaps  not  one  whose  criminal  impulse  may 
not  be  at  some  moment  overpowered  by  the  pres- 
ence of  some  other  emotion  to  which  his  character 
is  also  potentially  liable,  provided  that  other 
emotion  be  only  made  intense  enough.  Fear  is 
usually  the  most  available  for  this  result  in  this 
particular  class  of  persons.  It  stands  for  con- 
science, and  may  here  be  classed  appropriately 
as   a   'higher   affection.' 

"7/  we  are  soon  to  die,  or  if  we  believe  a  Day 
of  Judgment  to  he  near  at  hand,  how  quickly  do 
we  put  our  moral  house  in  order — we  do  not  see 
how  sin  can  evermore  exert  temptation  over  us. 


THE  SEVERITY  OF  GOD  43 

"Old-fashioned  hell-fire  Christianity  well  knew 
how  to  extract  from  fear  its  full  equivalent  in  the 
way  of  fruits  for  repentance,  and  its  full  conver- 
sion value." 

The  italics  are  mine,  used  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that,  as  he  proceeds,  the  eminent  psychologist 
and  student  of  spiritual  experience  widens  the 
scope  of  his  statement  and  makes  fear,  or  the 
aroused  consciousness  of  infinite  peril,  an  integral 
factor  in  the  regeneration  of  all  classes  of  men. 
"We"  are  moved  by  the  same  appeal,  aroused 
by  the  same  complex  emotions,  and  induced  to 
"get  right  with  God"  by  being  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  same  grim  realities  as  is  the  trans- 
gressor of  the  laws  of  organized  society.  The 
fact  that  certain  temperaments  shrink  from  the 
emphasis  of  the  tragic  and  terrible,  and  react 
only  to  the  manifest  mercy  of  the  Father,  proves 
nothing  to  the  contrary. 

If  the  doubter  still  remains  doubtful,  and  re- 
fuses to  believe  on  the  testimony  of  one  witness, 
let  him  read  Beecher,  that  inveterate  optimist, 
on  "Through  Fear  to  Love,"  and  Horace  Bush- 
nell  on  "One  Chance  Better  than  Many,"  and 
Harold  Begbie's  Twice  Born  Men,  that  clinic  in 
regeneration  which  thrilled  a  discouraged  church 
a  decade  ago.  Or  let  him  turn  to  a  larger  and 
later  volume — that  of  life  itself — and  find  how 
the   blasphemous    and   indifferent,   the   men   who 


44?      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

have  been  unmoved  by  the  "gentle"  appeals  of  "a 
more  liberal  spirit,"  were  in  multitudes  of  cases 
brought  to  themselves  and  to  Christ  by  visions 
of  death  and  the  hereafter  burned  into  their  souls 
in  the  first-line  trenches.  After  all  has  been  said 
about  the  soldiers  disliking  the  preaching  of 
heaven  and  hell,  the  fact  remains  that  they  re- 
acted to  religion  in  a  situation  where  the  horrors 
of  hell  were  made  more  real  to  them  than  ever 
before.  A  whole  race  who  had  forgotten  death 
were  made  to  feel  not  only  the  reality  but  the 
cruciality  of  death. 

More  than  any  abstract  reasoning  or  scientific 
theorizing,  that  blazing  inferno  called  the  world 
war  has  proved  beyond  peradventure  that  if  men 
are  to  be  saved,  they  must  be  brought  face  to 
face  with  and  be  made  to  feel  the  grim  and  terrible 
as  well  as  the  pleasant  and  glorious  realities. 

In  the  words  of  the  doughty  (though  now 
antique)  Joseph  Cook,  "God  cannot  be  an 
enswathing  kiss  without  also  being  a  consuming 
fire,"  and  the  only  appeal  to  which  the  generality 
of  men  will  react  must  emphasize  that  fact. 

The  testimony  of  history,  to  be  adequately 
cited,  requires  thorough  treatment.  In  order  to 
keep  the  present  treatment  within  the  limits  of 
prudence  only  the  general  statement  can  be  made, 
leaving  the  reader  to  challenge  or  confirm.  Here 
it  is:  every  great  Christian  age  and  every  vital 


THE  SEVERITY  OF  GOD  46 

spiritual  revival  in  Christian  history  has  had  at 
its  heart  the  belief  in  and  emphasis  of  the  Judg- 
ment and  eternal  consequences  of  continued  sin, 
and,  conversely,  the  periods  marked  by  moral  and 
spiritual  decadence  have  been  periods  when  the 
pulpit  has  been  silent  about,  and  the  people  have 
ceased  to  believe  vitally  in,  the  fact  that  "because 
of  these  things  cometh  the  wrath  of  God  upon 
the  children  of  disobedience." 

"Petrarch  said  that  the  court  of  the  popes  at 
Avignon  was  a  place  where  the  hope  of  heaven  and 
the  fear  of  hell  were  regarded  as  old  fables,  where 
virtue  was  esteemed  an  affair  for  peasants,  and 
sin  was  regarded  as  a  sign  of  manly  independ- 
ence." And  if  at  times  the  horrors  of  eternal 
alienation  from  God  have  been  dwelt  upon  even 
more  than  the  bliss  of  his  presence,  what  theolog}^ 
lost  in  sweetness  the  saints  seem  to  have  gained 
in  strength.  The  preaching  of  those  first  Chris- 
tian centuries,  and  of  Savonarola  during  the 
cleansing  of  Florence,  and  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation,  and  of  Calvin  on  the  continent  and 
Knox  in  Scotland,  and  of  the  Wesleyan  re- 
vival under  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefield,  and  of 
the  revivals  in  America  under  Edwards  and 
Finney  and  Moody  and  Billy  Sunday — the  preach- 
ing of  those  great  movements  and  great  leaders 
has  differed  in  many  ways,  but  every  bit  of  it  has 
been  marked  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  by  one 


46      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

thing — the  insistent,  persistent  declaration  that 
every  man  must  give  an  account  of  himself  to 
Almighty  God  for  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  and 
that  he  who  faces  the  future  without  faith  in  and 
fidelity  to  Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour  is  but  commit- 
ting his  own  soul  to  the  black  darkness  of  spiritual 
death.  No  preaching  that  minimizes  or  is  silent 
about  man's  responsibility  to  God  and  the  eternal 
consequences  of  sin  has  ever  brought  about  a  wide- 
spread revival  of  religion  or  led  humanity  to  the 
heroic  heights  of  abandonment  to  the  will  of  God. 
It  is  a  significant  thing  that  Protestantism  had 
its  beginning  not  merely  in  the  revolt  of  the  monk 
Martin  Luther  against  the  cheapening  of  salvation 
by  a  corrupt  church,  but  in  the  fleeing  of  the  man 
Martin  Luther  from  the  miseries  of  hell,  both 
present  and  prospective,  to  the  cross  of  Christ 
for  deliverance. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  conclusion  is  self-evi- 
dent. The  present  silence  of  the  Protestant  pul- 
pit on  the  solemn  themes  of  hell  and  the  Judgment 
is  a  reaction  from  hyper-Calvinism.  All  reactions 
tend  toward  extremes  and  all  extremes  are  preg- 
nant of  disaster.  From  the  tyranny  of  a  despot 
to  the  tyranny  of  the  mob;  from  bald  literalism 
to  destructive  higher  criticism;  from  the  excesses 
of  emotionalism  to  the  devitalized  calm  of  intel- 
lectualism;  from  dogmatism  to  skepticism;  from 
the  rack  and  thumb  screw  to  an  easy-going  toler- 


THE  SEVERITY  OF  GOD  47 

ance  bom  of  indifference;  from  "mid- Victorian" 
prudery  to  the  mad  nastiness  of  the  early  twen- 
tieth century — those  are  a  few  of  the  chapters 
in  the  history  of  human  progress.  And  this  is 
like  unto  the  rest.  The  pendulum  has  again  swung 
to  the  end  of  the  arc.  If  Jonathan  Edwards  and 
his  frightful  sermon  on  "Sinners  in  the  Hands 
of  an  Angry  God"  represent  one  extreme,  the 
modern  preacher,  with  the  doctrine  of  "the  dread- 
ful consequences  of  unrepented  sin  continuing 
beyond  the  grave"  laid  carefully  away  in  the  attic 
of  his  intellect,  may  well  represent  the  other. 
And  the  last  state  of  the  pulpit  is  at  least  as  bad 
as  the  first.  If  the  preacher  of  the  gospel  has 
no  moral  right  to  "put  the  devil  on  the  throne  and 
call  him  God,"  neither  has  he  any  right  to  let 
mankind  think  of  God  as  a  magnified  and  over- 
indulgent  parent,  who  winks  blandly  at  all  forms 
of  wrong.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  assume  that 
this  silence  in  the  pulpit  is  the  cause  of  so  much 
spiritual  superficiality  in  the  pews,  or  even  sug- 
gest that  it  bears  any  causal  relation  to  the  moral 
rottenness  which  brought  our  boasted  civilization 
down  with  such  a  tragic  crash.  But  it  is  fair 
to  remind  ourselves  that  these  conditions  happen 
to  be  contemporaneous,  and  to  recollect  Carlyle's 
striking  words,  "When  belief  waxes  uncertain 
then  practice  too  becomes  unsound."  And  to  the 
thoughtful  man  there  will  come  those  disturbing 


48      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

words  from  Jeremiah,  "They  have  healed  also  the 
hurt  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  slightly,  say- 
ing. Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no  peace."  No 
sane  man  would  advocate  a  return  to  the  religion 
of  the  November  fog,  whose  chief  function,  as 
Brierley  put  it,  is  the  exhalation  of  gloom.  No 
one  wants  preaching  that  appeals  to  fear,  and 
that  alone.  The  Christianity  which  "walks  in 
worried  morality"  is  gone  and  never  ought  to 
come  back.  But  thoughtful  men,  I  believe,  can 
already  see  the  need  of  that  balanced  preaching 
which  drives  home  to  the  consciousness  both  the 
severity  and  the  goodness  of  God,  the  wages  of 
sin  as  well  as  the  gift  of  God,  the  horrors  of  hell 
and  the  glories  of  heaven  as  well  as  the  call  to 
social  service.  Then,  and  only  then,  will  men 
be  rid  of  their  fatuous  illusions  and  realize  that 
now  is  the  accepted  time,  now  is  the  day  of  salva- 
tion. Then,  and  then  only,  can  we  even  hope 
for  the  first  faint  beginnings  of  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  IMPOSSIBH^ITY  OF  NEUTRALITY 


Truths,  of  all  others  the  most  awful  and  interesting,  are  too 
often  regarded  as  so  true  that  they  lose  all  the  power  of  truth 
and  lie  bedridden  in  the  dormitory  of  the  soul,  side  by  side 
with  the  most  despised  and  exploded  errors. — Coleridge. 

The  essence  of  unbelief  is  not  the  denial  of  the  truth,  but 
refusal  to  treat  the  truth  as  true.  .  .  .  We  are  not  measured 
by  the  truths  that  we  deny,  but  by  the  truths  that,  recog- 
nizing, we  still  are  practically  ignoring. — Henry  Churchill  King. 

The  alternatives  are  strictly  limited  and  exclusive.  Men 
try  to  play  with  both,  but  it  is  a  futile  game.  Our  Lord  al- 
ways insisted  that  at  bottom  every  man  was  ruled  by  one  or 
the  other  of  two  contradictory  principles.  He  allowed  for 
black  and  white,  goats  and  sheep — no  neutral  tints,  no  hy- 
brids. However  hard  it  is  for  us  to  slice  society  in  two,  Jesus 
says  it  will  be  done  at  the  Judgment.  There  will  be  two 
groups,  not  twenty,  and  every  man  is  in  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  groups  now. — Robert  E.  Speer. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  IMPOSSIBH^ITY  OF  NEUTRALITY 

It  took  some  good  people  a  long  time  to  dis- 
cover that  mental  neutrality  toward  the  titanic 
struggle  called  the  world  war  was  not  a  virtue, 
but  a  vice.  In  fact,  it  was  impossible  to  a  man 
of  conscience  because  the  issues  involved  were  not 
material,  but  moral.  As  Agnes  Repplier  says,  in 
her  remarkable  essay  on  "War  and  the  Child," 
"The  absence  of  decided  views,  feeling,  or  expres- 
sion sounds,  when  matters  of  vital  importance  are 
at  stake,  like  a  contradiction  in  terms." 

How  long  will  it  take  men  to  realize  that  in  the 
unending  conflict  between  God  and  the  devil,  good 
and  evil,  neutrality  is  absolutely  impossible .^^  In 
this  war,  even  more  than  in  that,  every  man  is, 
by  necessity,  on  one  side  or  the  other,  not  only 
in  sympathy  and  interest,  but  also  in  influence 
and  active  participation.  The  Christian  aspect 
of  the  situation  was  stated,  briefly  and  bluntly,  by 
Jesus  Christ  himself,  when  he  said,  "He  that  is 
not  for  me  is  against  me."  In  other  words,  the 
postponement  of  decision  concerning  one's  rela- 
tion to  Christ  and  his  work,  by  means  of  which 
51 


52      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

so  many  men  imagine  that  they  hold  the  matter 
in  abeyance,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  decision 
for  the  devil.  Indecision,  that  fatal  weakness  of 
the  double-minded,  is  not  merely  a  negative  weak- 
ness ;  it  is  a  positive  contribution  to  the  sum  total 
of  evil.  Indifference  is  a  personal  sin  and  apathy 
a  spiritual  crime  against  society,  and  inactivity 
is,  in  its  final  result,  activity  on  the  wrong  side. 
There  is  something  ethically  significant  as  well  as 
historically  dramatic  in  that  part  of  the  song  of 
Deborah  and  Barak  which  runs,  "Curse  ye  Meroz, 
said  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  curse  ye  bitterly  the 
inhabitants  thereof ;  because  they  came  not  to  the 
help  of  the  Lord,  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the 
mighty."  The  sin  of  Meroz  consisted  in  doing 
nothing  when  vital  issues  were  at  stake. 

Approaching  the  matter  from  the  side  of  the 
individual  and  his  own  personal  faith  or  non-faith, 
James  says :  "If  a  thinker  had  no  stake  in  the  un- 
known, no  vital  needs,  to  live  or  languish  accord- 
ing to  what  the  unseen  world  contained,  a  philo- 
sophic neutrality  and  refusal  to  believe  either 
one  way  or  the  other  would  be  his  wisest  cue. 
But,  unfortunately,  neutrality  is  not  only  in- 
wardly difficult,  it  is  also  outwardly  unrealizable, 
where  our  relations  to  an  alternative  are  practical 
and  vital.  This  is  because,  as  the  psychologists 
tell  us,  belief  and  doubts  are  living  attitudes,  and 
involve  conduct  on  our  part."     And  then,  ap- 


IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  NEUTRALITY    53 

proaching  it  from  the  side  of  conduct,  he  says, 
"There  are,  you  see,  inevitable  occasions  in  life 
when  inaction  is  a  kind  of  action,  and  when 
not  to  be  for  is  to  be  practically  against;  and  in 
all  such  cases  strict  and  consistent  neutrality  is 
an  unattainable  thing."  There  you  have  the 
truth  in  both  realms,  in  that  of  belief  and  in  that 
of  life.  In  both,  man  is  presented  with  a  forced 
option.  He  must  choose,  whether  he  will  or  not, 
and  he  does  choose,  whether  or  not  he  has  a  clear 
realization  of  that  fact. 

The  two  most  striking  examples  in  modern 
history  of  this  compulsion  to  choice,  realized  and 
acted  upon,  the  one  disastrously  and  the  other 
triumphantly,  are  found  in  the  lives  of  Aaron 
Burr  and  Wendell  Phillips.  Brought  face  to  face 
with  God  by  an  awakened  conscience  and  made 
to  see  that  he  must  decide  the  matter  of  his  atti- 
tude toward  God  once  and  forever,  the  young  and 
brilliant  grandson  of  Jonathan  Edwards  went 
into  seclusion  for  a  week,  fought  the  question  to 
a  finish,  and  decided  that  he  would  not  surrender. 
How,  as  a  result,  he  became  one  of  the  conspicu- 
ously infamous  figures  in  the  annals  of  American 
history  and  became  the  willing  agent  of  evil  in 
daring  ways,  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge. 
When  a  boy  of  fourteen,  Wendell  Phillips  heard 
Lyman  Beecher  on  the  theme,  "You  Belong  to 
God."    As  he,  himself,  puts  it,  "I  went  home  after 


54      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

that  service,  threw  myself  on  the  floor  in  my  room 
with  locked  doors,  and  prayed:  'O  God,  I  belong 
to  thee;  take  what  is  thine  own.  I  ask  this,  that 
whenever  a  thing  be  wrong  it  may  have  no  power 
of  temptation  over  me;  and  whenever  a  thing  be 
right  it  may  take  no  courage  to  do  it.'  "  That 
prayer  was  not  answered  just  as  he  expected,  for 
it  must  have  taken  vast  courage  to  do  many  of 
the  things  he  was  called  upon  to  do.  But  it  was 
answered  in  that  he  became,  as  a  result  of  that 
decision,  one  of  the  most  useful  and  influential 
Christian  leaders,  not  only  in  abolishing  slavery, 
but  also  in  establishing  democracy  on  a  righteous 
foundation. 

In  the  trying  days  in  which  we  are  living  this 
inevitable  alternative  is  being  given  the  deepest 
and  most  tragic  significance.  Those  who  thought 
the  end  of  the  war  would  mean  the  end  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  conflict,  found  themselves 
sleeping  in  a  fool's  paradise.  The  war  was  only 
the  beginning.  As  Johnston-Ross  states  it,  it  was 
an  episode  in  a  drama  of  incalculable  significance. 
It  was  the  opening  skirmish  in  a  fight  to  a  finish 
between  the  forces  of  good  and  evil,  and  that 
fight  cannot  be  averted  by  the  distinguished  gen- 
tlemen sitting  about  the  peace  table  at  Paris. 
Social  reconstruction  is  already  being  found  to 
be  neither  automatic  nor  easy.  While  the  con- 
flict   of    armies    was    still    raging,    a    far-seeing 


IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  NEUTRALITY    55 

philosopher  warned  us  to  look  out  for  one  of  the 
violent  moral  reactions  that  always  follow  periods 
of  exalted  emotion  and  heroic  action.  The  chroni- 
clers of  contemporaneous  history  are  already 
busy  registering  the  pathetic  evidences  of  the 
fulfillment  of  his  prophecy.  An  American  resi- 
dent in  Paris  writes  to  a  friend  these  meaningful 
sentences:  "As  time  passes,  we  begin  to  tee  more 
and  more  that  we  are  looking  on  at  a  scene  where 
the  play  of  every  passion,  be  it  good,  bad,  or 
indifferent,  is  having  its  effect  on  the  general 
result.  Every  one,  from  the  purest  altruism  down 
through  the  scale  to  the  meanest  selfishness,  has 
its  part  in  the  mise  en  scene.  In  spite  of  the  note 
of  the  Golden  Rule,  which  is  sounded  in  as  well 
as  out  of  season,  it  is  plainly  manifest  that  there 
are  continental,  national,  racial,  tribal,  and  per- 
sonal axes  to  be  ground  in  the  baggage  of  more 
than  one  of  the  representatives  with  us,  and  that 
the  world's  grindstone  will  be  freely  requisitioned 
to  put  an  edge  on  all  of  them  before  the  sword  of 
justice  will  be  so  sharpened  that  the  era  of  peace 
on  earth,  for  which  everybody,  save  a  respectable 
number  of  unregenerate  Huns,  is  longing,  will  be 
anything  other  than  a  Utopian  dream." 

Add  to  that  the  social  revolution  which  is  rag- 
ing in  Russia,  Germany,  and  Austria,  and  fast 
spreading  to  every  corner  of  the  world.  Add  to 
that  the  fact,  not  yet  clearly  grasped  by  the  many, 


66      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

that  the  social  radicals  the  world  over  not  only 
deride  every  suggestion  that  personal  virtue  has 
anything  to  do  with  social  progress,  but  also 
laugh  at  the  idea  of  God  and  plan  the  extermina- 
tion of  all  religion.  And  then  add  to  that  the 
equally  significant  fact  that  there  is  a  widespread 
and  determined  attempt  to  substitute  "the  half 
truths  and  false  psychology  of  popular  altruism" 
for  the  austere  simplicity  and  exacting  ethic  of 
the  Christian  religion. 

There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  an  elaborate 
discussion  of  the  relation  of  these  stupendous 
events  to  prophecy.  Whether  the  world  conflict 
was  or  was  not  Armageddon  has  no  bearing  on  the 
case.  But  it  is  imperative  to  relate  the  whole 
situation  to  conduct  and  character,  to  faith  and 
practice. 

The  fact  to  be  noted  is  that  in  that  stupendous 
struggle  between  heaven  and  hell  there  will  be 
no  such  thing  as  neutrality.  The  taking  of  no 
side  will  be  equivalent  to  taking  the  wrong  side. 
Indecision  will  be  enlistment  under  the  black  flag 
of  Satanic  enterprise  and  inactivity  will  be  trea- 
son. It  may  be  that  once  more  it  will  cost  to 
align  oneself  with  the  host  of  God,  just  as  it  cost 
in  those  first  fiery  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 
If  it  does,  the  result  will  be  beneficial.  "We  hold 
all  too  cheaply  beliefs  for  which  we  are  not  called 
upon  to  suff'er  or  die."     Those  were  tremendous 


IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  NEUTRALITY    57 

and  triumphant  days  when  Saint  Paul  wrote  to 
"my  son  Timothy,"  "Yea,  and  all  that  will  to  live 
godly  in  Christ  Jesus  shall  suffer  persecution." 
Every  age  in  which  the  forces  of  good  and  evil 
have  been  clearly  aligned,  one  against  the  other, 
has  been  an  age  of  trial,  but  it  has  also  been  an 
age  of  triumph.  In  this  time  of  revolution  and 
upheaval  the  air  will  be  cleared  of  all  fogs  and 
mists,  it  will  be  seen  that  every  man  must  answer 
the  question,  "Who  is  on  the  Lord's  side?"  The 
Spirit  of  the  conquering  Christ  will  make  plain 
to  every  open  mind  the  fact  that  "He  that  is  not 
for  me  is  against  me,"  and  new  and  larger  mean- 
ings for  preacher  and  hearer  will  be  given  that 
age-old  exhortation,  "Choose  ye  this  day  whom 
ye  will  serve." 


CHAPTER  V 
IF  I  WERE  A  YOUNG  MINISTER 


It  is  possible  for  you  and  me,  taking  the  facts  of  the  spir- 
itual life,  to  declare  them  with  as  true  a  certainty  as  any 
preacher  ever  did,  in  what  men  called  the  "ages  of  faith." 
They  are  as  true  to-day  as  they  ever  were.  Men  are  as  ready 
to  feel  their  truth.  The  spiritual  nature  of  man,  with  all  its 
needs,  is  just  as  real  a  thing,  and  Christ  is  just  as  truly  and 
richly  its  satisfaction. — Phillips  Brooks. 

There  are  few  things  that  earnest  men  need  more  to  make 
clear  to  themselves  from  the  beginning  of  their  lifework,  than 
that  they  will  have  to  fight  for  time  to  grow,  for  time  to  do 
solid  enduring  work,  for  time  to  do  especially  the  particular 
definite  piece  of  work  which  God  has  laid  on  their  souls  to  do. 
— Henry  Churchill  King. 

Nothing  makes  up  for  a  failure  in  preaching.  The  church 
of  all  denominations,  if  they  are  wise,  will  give  themselves 
with  increased  zeal  and  devotion  to  the  training  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry.  Nor  will  any  magnificence  of  ritual,  or  any 
musical  attraction,  or  any  lectures  on  secular  subjects  per- 
manently attract  worshipers.  It  can  be  done  only  by  Chris- 
tian preaching. — Robertson  Nicol. 


CHAPTER  V 
IF  I  WERE  A  YOUNG  MINISTER 

Two  of  the  most  essential  characteristics  of  a 
vital  ministry  are  poise  and  perspective.  To  be 
able  to  see  clearly  what  ought  to  be  done  and 
then,  despite  clamor  and  criticism,  to  hold  steadily 
to  the  task  of  doing  it — that  power  will  enable 
even  an  ordinary  man  to  bring  extraordinary 
things  to  pass.  It  marks  the  difference  between 
a  builder  and  a  putterer.  And  if  ever  that  power 
was  needed,  it  is  needed  now.  The  world  is  in 
eruption  and  nobody  knows  the  end  thereof.  The 
only  thing  upon  which  men  are  agreed  is  that  we 
cannot  go  back.  Old  things  are  passing  away ;  all 
things  must  become  new.  But  what  will  be  the 
effect  of  the  new  order  of  things  upon  organized 
Christianity.''  Crowns  and  thrones  are  perishing; 
kingdoms  are  waxing  and  waning  with  bewildering 
rapidity;  but  are  we  sure  that  "the  church  of 
Jesus  constant  will  remain"  .'^ 

In  short,  what  will  this  after-the-war  world 
mean  to  the  church — transformation  or  extirpa- 
tion? That  is  the  question  asked  by  skeptic  and 
believer  alike. 

61 


62      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

The  men  who,  more  than  any  others,  will  deter- 
mine the  answer  are  the  young  men  in  the  Chris- 
tian ministry,  for  they  will  be  in  the  thick  of 
things  during  the  long  period  of  reconstruction. 
And  they  will  answer  it  best  by  approaching  the 
matter  from  the  opposite  angle  and  asking, 
"What  can  organized  Christianity  do  for  the  new 
social  order?"  Our  business  is  not  to  save  the 
church,  but  to  save  the  world.  Jesus  Christ  is  in 
charge  of  that  enterprise  and  he  has  made  it 
perfectly  clear  that  it  cannot  be  accomplished 
by  any  merely  defensive  campaign.  Furthermore, 
he  has  furnished  ample  munitions  of  war  and  left 
adequate  instructions  in  military  strategy. 

Therefore,  if  I  were  a  young  minister,  I  would 
concentrate  my  energies  on  becoming  a  preacher, 
the  best  preacher  that  could  be  made  out  of  the 
material  in  hand.  The  day  of  the  ecclesiastical 
engineer  has  gone.  That  method  of  kingdom- 
building,  along  with  many  others,  has  been  weighed 
in  the  balance  and  found  wanting.  Stripped  of 
all  illusions  and  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
grim  realities  of  life,  death,  and  the  beyond,  a 
burdened  and  perplexed  humanity  wants  the 
truth,  and  it  is  the  minister's  business  to  see  that 
the  truth  is  proclaimed.  The  British  soldier's 
succinct  statement,  made  before  going  "over  the 
top,"  "It  is  all  right  to  entertain  me,  but  I  want 
some  one  to  tell  me  how  to  die,"  was  the  imperfect 


IF  I  WERE  A  YOUNG  MINISTER      63 

voicing  of  the  race's  inarticulate  need  of 
prophets,  for  men  who  will  speak  with  authority 
and  tact  of  God  and  Christ  and  the  soul's  salva- 
tion. This  is  no  time  for  the  apostle  to  be  serving 
tables. 

My  message  would  be  salvation  by  faith  in  an 
atoning  Saviour  and  risen  Lord,  and  no  sneers 
of  "the  enlightened"  or  clamor  of  "the  liberals" 
would  cause  me  to  change  it  one  iota.  A  great 
deal  of  the  talk  about  the  new  age  needing  a  new 
message  is  arrant  nonsense.  Down  at  bottom  the 
"new  age"  will  be  just  like  all  other  ages,  made 
up  of  sinful  men  and  women  who  need  a  Saviour, 
and  no  substitution  of  a  "Christ  ideal"  for  the 
historical  Jesus  can  meet  that  need.  Neither 
Hellenistic  naturalism  nor  a  creedless  church, 
made  up  of  those  who  believe  anything  or  nothing, 
can  save  the  world.  "Christ  crucified  is  unto  the 
Greeks  foolishness,"  now  as  in  the  day  of  Saint 
Paul,  but  unto  them  which  are  called,  in  every 
age,  he  is  "the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of 
God."  We  may  well  stop  confounding  systems 
of  theology  with  saving  faith,  but  there  is  an 
irreducible  minimum  before  which  we  must  take 
our  stand  with  the  statement,  "Thus  far  thou 
shalt  go  and  no  farther."  The  weakness  of  the 
modern  church  has  not  been  bigotry  or  intolerant 
dogmatism,  but  "fog  in  theology"  and  vagueness 
in  the  pulpit.    And  what  is  needed  in  the  new  age 


64      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

is  not  a  new  message,  but  the  old  message  of  salva- 
tion by  faith  in  the  personal  Saviour  made  vital 
by  a  pulpit  and  church  both  proclaiming  and 
embodying  its  truth.  As  Henry  Watterson  put 
it:  "Democracy  is  a  side  issue.  If  the  world  is 
to  be  saved  after  the  war,  it  will  be  saved  by 
Christianity,  by  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified" 
[The  italics  are  mine.] 

I  would  make  the  primary  purpose  of  my  whole 
ministry  the  thorough  conversion  of  individuals. 
In  the  case  of  children  you  may  call  the  result 
"decision,"  for  I  have  no  desire  to  quibble  over  the 
question  of  their  relation  to  the  Kingdom.  Along 
with  the  modem  emphasis  on  the  social  implica- 
tions of  the  gospel  has  come  a  ministerial  im- 
patience (often  unconscious)  at  the  age-old 
method  of  world  salvation  by  the  regeneration  of 
individuals.  Amid  "the  din  of  social  reforms, 
political  purgations,  and  all  the  clamorous,  in- 
sistent things"  of  the  past  quarter  of  a  century, 
the  unobtrusive  work  of  leading  men  to  Christ 
one  by  one  has  seemed  slow  and  ineffectual.  It 
is  significant,  however,  that  that  very  change  in 
emphasis  from  the  mass  to  the  individual,  from 
social  salvation  by  general  uplift  to  social  salva- 
tion by  individual  transformation,  marks  the 
difference  between  the  Old  Dispensation  and  the 
New.  The  longer  Jesus's  public  ministry  con- 
tinued, the  more  time  he  gave  to  the  little  handful 


IF  I  WERE  A  YOUNG  MINISTER      65 

of  men  and  women  who  were  to  "turn  the  world 
upside  down."  I  would  be  a  fool  to  discount  the 
value  of  reforms  and  leadership  in  them  as  a 
constituent  part  of  the  minister's  work,  but  I 
would  be  a  bigger  fool  if  I  did  not  insist  that  his 
greatest  and  most  far-reaching  work  is  the  leading 
of  individuals  into  the  life  as  it  is  in  Christ.  Get 
men  soundly  converted,  really  surrendered  to 
God  and  transformed  by  his  power,  and  you  can 
trust  them  to  become  honest,  just,  and  helpful 
in  their  multifarious  relations  with  their  fellow 
men.  But  scamp  or  neglect  that  work,  ignore 
conversion  as  a  basic  element  in  world  salvation, 
or  take  men  into  the  church  while  they  are  still 
trying  to  serve  two  masters,  and  you  can  thunder 
away  at  social  sins  and  tinker  away  at  social 
problems  until  doomsday  without  achieving  any 
lasting  results.  The  old  preacher  in  rural  Eng- 
land who  was  rebuked  because  the  total  definite 
fruit  of  one  year's  work  was  the  conversion  of 
one  boy  really  did  a  fair  year's  work  because  the 
conversion  was  thorough  and  the  boy  was  Robert 
MoiFat. 

In  order  to  be  an  effective  spiritual  physician 
I  would  compel  myself  to  constant  intimacy  with 
God  and  vital  contact  with  men.  Two  of  the 
perils  of  a  settled  pastorate  in  these  complex 
times  are  that  a  man  will  be  too  busy  to  spend 
much  time  with  God  and  too  busy  with  impersonal 


66      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

matters  to  really  touch  the  life  of  the  people. 
And  if  the  mediaeval  ascetic  went  too  far  in  one 
direction,  the  modem  ministerial  "good  mixer" 
goes  too  far  in  the  other.  Popular  opinion  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding,  people  do  not  want  a 
mere  "good  fellow"  in  the  pulpit  or  out  of  it.  The 
demand  for  "reality"  in  the  pulpit  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  the  demand  for  a  preacher 
who  knows  God  so  thoroughly  through  personal 
communion  that  he  can  speak  with  authority, 
and  knows  men  so  intimately  through  passionate 
interest  and  personal  contact  that  he  can  speak 
with  discernment.  Like  Jesus  himself,  the  world 
wants  an  apostle  who  is  "in  the  world  but  not  of 
it,"  whose  soul  dwells  with  the  Eternal  in  mystical 
spiritual  detachment,  but  whose  heart  and  mind 
and  body  are  immersed  in  the  task  of  doing  good. 
Perfunctory  preaching,  however  cultured,  will  not 
do.  Perfunctory  calling  or  slum  work  will  not  do. 
They  want  a  ministry  that  has  its  roots  in  inti- 
mate oneness  with  God  and  flowers  in  that  self- 
obliterating  service  which  is  redolent  of  honest 
interest  and  sacrificial  love.  Such  a  ministry 
was  that  of  Samuel  Rutherford  and  Fletcher  of 
Madeley,  of  Hugh  Price  Hughes  and  Maltbie 
Babcock  and  Silvester  Home.  Such  is  that  of 
Bishop  Brent  and  Dan  Crawford  and  Wilfred 
Grenfell  and  our  own  Helms  of  Boston,  a  ministry 
that  answers  to  the  full  all  that  yearning  of  weak 


IF  I  WERE  A  YOUNG  MINISTER      67 

and  sorrowing  and  sinful  and  discouraged  hearts 
for 

"The  touch  of  human  hands — 
Such  care  as  was  in  Him 
Who  walked  in  Galilee 
Beside  the  silver  sea." 

In  these  days  of  multifarious  ministerial  calls 
and  a  highly  complex  ecclesiastical  machinery 
that  needs  constant  attention,  the  attainment  of 
such  a  ministry  is  not  easy.  Among  other  things, 
our  authoritative  Rural  Church  Programme  in- 
sists that  the  pastor  must  make  his  church  the 
center  of  the  social  life  of  the  community,  plan 
social  functions  for  the  young  people,  organize 
boys'  clubs,  "keep  something  doing  in  your  church 
all  the  time,"  establish  rural  study  classes  for 
training  leaders  for  conventional  church  work 
and  for  leaders  of  community  service,  develop  all 
phases  of  evangelistic  effort,  take  an  active  in- 
terest in  Farmers'  Institutes  and  other  rural 
organizations,  attend  public  sales,  introduce  a 
circulating  library  where  none  exists,  arrange  a 
course  of  lectures  on  "Good  Housekeeping," 
"Farming,"  or  give  stereopticon  lectures,  or- 
ganize a  Religious  Day  School  during  the  summer 
vacation,  organize  and  direct  a  staff  of  parish 
visitors,  also  a  band  of  personal  workers  and  a 
few  silent  workers,  and  "use  all  righteous  means 
to  lift  your  community  and  your  entire  parish 


68      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

up  to  the  highest  state  of  moral,  industrial,  social, 
and  spiritual  efficiency."  And  then,  after  enumer- 
ating a  few  collective  tasks  for  all  the  ministers 
on  a  district,  such  as  the  organization  of  county 
farm  bureaus,  county  welfare  bureaus,  com- 
munity clubs,  county  library  systems,  community 
health  campaigns,  home  economic  campaigns,  and 
the  care  of  the  unfortunate  classes  in  county 
homes,  lockups,  jails,  and  insane  asylums,  the 
program  concludes  with  the  earnest  exhortation, 
"Above  all,  determine  to  make  your  sermons  on 
the  Sabbath  scriptural,  spiritual,  and  inspira- 
tional." That  is  a  stupendous  task  for  any  one 
man.  It  isn't  a  program:  it  is  a  plan  of  cam- 
paign. And  there  is  a  real  peril  that  he  who 
undertakes  to  carry  it  out  will  find  himself  drained 
of  physical  and  spiritual  vitality  alike.  A  recent 
article  by  Dr.  Mitchell,  of  Metropolitan  Church, 
Washington,  protesting  against  the  ceaseless 
demands  upon  a  minister's  time  and  strength,  and 
voicing  the  cry,  "Give  the  preacher  a  chance," 
has  in  it  real  food  for  reflection.  And  there  was 
something  tragic  in  another  article,  in  which  a 
Metropolitan  pastor  declared  that  he  would  find 
time  to  commune  with  God  and  get  from  him  a 
real  and  vital  message,  or  he  would  leave  the  work. 
I  say  that,  in  this  age  of  complex  living,  a 
deep  and  effective  ministry  such  as  is  really  needed 
is  not  easy;  but  I  affirm  that  it  is  possible.     The 


IF  I  WERE  A  YOUNG  MINISTER      69 

young  man  can  attain  it  if  he  will.  He  must  feel 
its  worth ;  formulate  a  plan  and  work  it ;  recog- 
nize his  limitations  and  honor  the  laws  of  spiritual 
life  and  growth;  learn  to  discriminate  in  values 
and,  consequently,  to  "know  the  duty  of  refusing 
to  do  good" ;  hold  steady  against  outward  oppo- 
sition and  inward  inertia;  be  content  sometimes 
with  slow  progress  and  meager  results;  guard 
himself  always  against  the  lure  of  popularity  and 
the  substitution  of  the  lesser  good;  amid  disap- 
pointment and  disaster  and  misunderstanding,  he 
must  "endure  as  seeing  the  invisible" ;  it  may  be, 
indeed,  that,  like  his  Master,  he  will  have  to  walk 
the  lonely  path  of  the  broken  heart ;  but  in  the 
end  he  will  achieve,  and,  in  the  largest  and  truest 
sense,  he  will  know  the  meaning  of  that  mysterious 
promise,  "The  works  that  I  do  shall  ye  do  also, 
and  greater  works  than  these  shall  ye  do  because 
I  go  to  my  Father." 

I  envy  the  young  minister  of  the  gospel  to-day 
more  than  I  do  anybody  else  on  earth. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  SIN  OF  SELF-DECEPTION 


Before  the  overwhelming  immensities  of  the  universe,  re- 
ligion alone  remains  unabashed.  Things  are  as  they  are. 
New  names  do  not  alter  them.  Evil  is  evil.  Pain  is  pain. 
Death  is  death.  And  it  is  only  by  accepting  them  as  they 
are  that  religion  can  be  true  to  herself.  Let  them  be  what 
they  are  and  religion  will  deal  with  them.  Let  the  sinner  be 
a  sinner  and  she  will  put  her  arms  around  him.  Let  the  sheep 
be  veritably  lost  and  she  will  recover  them.  Let  the  gloom 
thicken  and  her  radiance  shall  glow  like  the  noonday.  Let 
life  be  tragic  and  she  will  lift  it  up  among  the  stars. — Author 
unknown. 

Life  finds  most  dangerous  enemies  in  the  peril  of  the  lower 
attainment,  and  in  the  lack  of  honesty  and  fellowship  with 
the  best;  and  so  in  refusing  to  face  the  outstanding  facts  of 
life  with  an  honest  reaction  upon  them,  and  in  turning  away 
from  the  supreme  sources  of  life.  ...  If  you  would  get  that 
real  sharing  in  the  life  of  God  in  which  anything  that  can  be 
called  religion  must  consist,  do  not  begin  to  juggle  with  your 
reason  and  conscience.  Do  not  twist  the  evidence.  .  .  .  One 
cannot  build  solidly  on  sham  anywhere. — Henry  Churchill 
King. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  SIN  OF  SELF-DECEPTION 

We  were  all  talking  about  life  in  the  large,  with 
no  special  reference  to  things  moral  or  spiritual. 
Suddenly  the  Young  Lady  College  Graduate 
spoke  up  and  said:  "When  I  really  want  to  do  a 
thing,  I  first  convince  myself  that  it  is  right." 

She  said  it  neither  boastfully  nor  apologeti- 
cally, but  as  casually  as  one  would  make  an  obser- 
vation on  the  weather.  Furthermore,  she  con- 
siders herself  a  consistent  Christian,  and  would 
resent  the  suggestion  that  her  ethics  are  not  as 
sound  as  those  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  her  casual  remark  was 
a  tacit  confession  that,  where  impulse  or  desire 
was  involved,  she  had  established  the  practice 
of  settling  all  questions  of  casuistry  by  deliberate 
self-deception.  And  even  as  she  spoke  I  thought 
of  Ibsen,  with  his  doctrine  of  illusions,  and  of 
that  striking  Scripture  phrase,  "the  deceitfulness 
of  sin." 

Self-deception  is  the  basis  of  all  sin.  Some- 
times it  is  conscious  and  deliberate;  sometimes  it 
is  unconscious.  Not  once  in  ten  thousand  times 
73 


74      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

does  a  man  (or  a  woman)  face  a  thing  and  say: 
"That  is  wrong,  absolutely  and  undeniably 
wrong.     Nevertheless,  I  am  going  to  do  it." 

Far  from  it.  He  begins  by  giving  it  a  coat  of 
moral  whitewash.  In  some  instances  he  admits 
the  wrongness  of  the  thing  in  general,  but  justifies 
himself  in  this  particular  case  by  specious  argu- 
ment or  concocted  excuse.  In  others  he  distorts 
facts  and  emasculates  moral  laws  until  he  abso- 
lutely hoodwinks  himself  into  believing  that  he 
is  doing  right.  Always  he  ends  with  a  temporarily 
complacent  feeling  of  freedom  from  all  blame- 
worthiness. 

That  is  the  gist  of  Stephen  Crane's  remarkable 
story.  The  Red  Badge  of  Courage.  A  young  man 
goes  to  war.  He  thinks  himself  the  bravest  man 
in  the  army.  In  the  thick  of  the  battle,  however, 
he  discovers  himself  in  the  grip  of  a  strange 
sensation.  It  is  strangely  like  fear  and  absolute 
cowardice,  but  he  reasons  that  he  isn't  afraid 
and  couldn't  be  a  coward.  Then  he  convinces 
himself  that  the  whole  army  really  ought  to 
retreat.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  they  do  nothing 
of  the  kind,  he  decides  that  he  ought  to  whether 
the  rest  do  or  not.  So  he  runs,  precipitately, 
rapidly,  ingloriously.  Safely  away,  he  once  more 
accuses  himself  of  cowardice.  But  that  cannot 
be,  so  he  reasons,  argues,  debates  with  himself 
until  he  ends  with  the  triumphant  and  comfort- 


THE  SIN  OF  SELF-DECEPTION       75 

able  conviction  that  he  is  the  only  really  wise  and 
courageous  man  in  the  army,  while  all  the  rest 
are  stupid  fools.  If  all  our  biographies  were 
fully  written,  would  that  youth's  experience  seem 
unique  and  pathological?  Is  there  not  a  some- 
thing in  each  of  us  that  rises  up  and  cries,  "I 
know  that  man"? 

That  is  the  way  the  devil  tried  to  debauch  the 
Christ.  The  father  of  lies  did  not  openly  ask 
him  to  do  wrong;  he  began  by  trying  to  convince 
the  young  man  Jesus  that  the  exercise  of  miracle- 
performing  power  for  selfish  ends  was  only  com- 
mendable self-preservation  and  that  spectacular 
foolhardiness  was  faith  in  the  Father's  care,  and 
he  used  the  Word  very  deftly  to  verify  his  claims. 
Undoubtedly  too  that  is  the  way  the  devil  led 
William  II  to  his  state  of  moral  topsy-turviness. 
The  Kaiser  told  himself  that  he  did  not  want  the 
world  war,  and  that  he  was  leading  his  people 
against  barbaric  hosts  who  precipitated  the  con- 
flict for  the  sole  purpose  of  annihilating  the  Ger- 
man nation,  until  he,  in  all  probability,  really 
believed  it. 

It  is  just  as  true  that  self-deception  is  a  device 
by  which  Satan  keeps  men  living  in  sin  as  it  is 
that  he  uses  that  means  to  start  them  along  the 
"way  that  seemeth  right."  The  difficulty  of  find- 
ing a  convict  who  will  admit  that  he  is  to  blame 
for  his  incarceration  is  well  known  to  the  penolo- 


76      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

gist  or  sociologist.  He  will  not  admit  it  to  any- 
body else  because  he  will  not  admit  it  to  himself. 
By  the  same  token,  the  difficulty  of  getting  men 
living  in  sin  to  feel  and  confess  their  sinfulness 
has  become  one  of  the  outstanding  facts  in  the 
religious  life  of  our  time.  In  the  world  of  prac- 
tical affairs  there  is  a  deal  of  vague  sentimentaliz- 
ing about  "the  spiritual  life"  which  fraternizes 
very  comfortably  with  questionable  habits  and 
practices,  and  among  the  intellectuals  there  is 
a  positive  attack  upon  the  spiritual  necessity  of 
a  conviction  of  sin.  In  an  article  published  a  year 
or  two  ago  an  ex-preacher  who  has  left  the  church 
because  it  is  a  failure,  to  become  an  apostle  of  a 
Beyond  Christianity  (whatever  that  may  mean), 
says  with  a  sneer:  "We  must  feel  that  we  are 
sinners,  and  go  groveling  in  the  dust  before  God 
before  we  can  be  saved." 

You  may  call  it  a  "trying  to  climb  up  some 
other  way."  I  call  it,  in  both  of  its  aspects,  a 
species  of  self-deception,  for  that  is  at  the  bottom 
of  it  all.  The  corrupt  politician  does  not  admit 
his  corruptions,  even  to  himself.  He  excuses 
himself  with  the  trite  (and  false)  affirmation  that 
"the  purification  of  politics  is  an  iridescent 
dream."  The  war  profiteer  pockets  his  swollen 
profits  with  the  comforting  thought  that  "every- 
body else  would  get  them  if  they  could."  The 
German  general  staff  explain  away  the  most  re- 


THE  SIN  OF  SELF-DECEPTION       77 

volting  atrocities  with  the  plea  of  "military  neces- 
sity"; the  thieving  employee  justifies  his  petty 
thefts  with  the  claim  that  he  is  taking  only  what 
really  belongs  to  him;  and  the  modem  immoral 
salves  his  accusing  conscience  with  the  modem 
teaching  (which  is  as  old  as  the  devil)  that  the 
impulses  were  given  us  for  indulgence,  not  re- 
straint. 

That  is  the  way  too  that  Satan  tries  to  steal 
the  soul  of  every  follower  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  As  Phillips  Brooks  so  tartly  put  it, 
"Satan  takes  us  by  side  attacks."  The  most 
awful  temptation  that  ever  assailed  me  came 
clothed  in  the  garb  of  a  Scripture  injunction. 
All  moral  compromise  begins  in  self-deception,  in 
convincing  ourselves  that  the  wrong  is  right,  the 
forbidden  is  excusable.  All  spiritual  deteriora- 
tion has  its  roots  in  self-deception,  in  deliberately 
shutting  our  eyes  to  the  compulsion  of  a  divine 
command  or  the  sinfulness  of  a  questionable  prac- 
tice. 

The  war  did  much  to  bring  many  to  their 
senses.  In  the  presence  of  death  and  the  unseen 
world  a  multitude  of  heedless  and  world-intoxi- 
cated men  were  stripped  of  all  illusions.  Under 
the  burden  of  sorrow  and  care  frivolous  women 
found  themselves  and  God.  But  what  is  the  way 
out  for  the  ordinary  man.'^  In  what  lies  escape 
from  the  peril  for  him.?     Where  is  he  to  find  the 


78      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

« 

secret  of  insight  into  reality,  of  accuracy  in 
spiritual  and  moral  valuations? 

In  spiritual  honesty.  Sincerity  and  self-decep- 
tion cannot  dwell  in  the  same  soul.  Life,  as  a 
whole,  can  be  right  only  for  the  man  who  faces 
every  situation  and  circumstance,  every  inclina- 
tion and  desire  with  unbiased  and  illumined  judg- 
ment, not  surreptitiously  trying  to  "convince 
himself  that  it  is  right,"  but  honestly  asking, 
"Is  it  right?  Is  it  wise?"  and  then  courageously 
squaring  his  conduct  with  his  knowledge.  Plain 
honesty  would  save  many  a  man  from  moral 
calamity  and  lead  to  the  deliverance  of  many 
from  bondage  to  sin. 

In  a  strong  passage,  which  views  the  matter 
in  its  social  as  well  as  its  personal  aspects, 
Rauschenbusch  states  this  necessity  most  force- 
fully. He  says:  "The  A  B  C  of  social  renewal 
and  moral  advance  is  for  each  of  us  to  face  our 
sins  sincerely  and  get  on  a  basis  of  frankness 
with  God  and  ourselves.  Therefore  Christianity 
set  out  with  a  call  for  personal  repentance.  If 
we  only  acted  up  to  what  we  know  to  be  right, 
this  world  would  be  a  different  place.  But  we 
fool  ourselves  with  protective  coloring  devices  in 
order  to  keep  our  own  self-respect.  Take  our 
language,  for  instance;  it  reeks  with  evasive 
euphemisms  intended  to  make  nasty  sins  look 
prettier.     We  call  stealing  swiping  and  cheat- 


THE  SIN  OF  SELF-DECEPTION       79 

ing  cribbing.  As  soon  as  we  face  the  facts,  we 
realize  that  what  we  call  peccadilloes  in  ourselves 
are  the  black  sins  that  have  slain  the  innocents 
and  have  ridden  humanity  through  all  its  his- 
tory. That  is  the  beginning  of  social  vision. 
Personal  repentance  is  a  social  advance."  Those 
words,  addressed  to  college  students,  have  great 
value  for  every  man  who  would  be  true  to  himself 
and  to  God. 

Spiritual  safety  lies  in  spiritual  wariness. 
"The  heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things."  The 
final  fruit  of  self-deception  is  hypocrisy  on  the 
one  hand  and  hardness  on  the  other,  in  having 
eyes  that  see  not  and  ears  that  hear  not.  That 
phrase  "the  deceitfulness  of  sin"  is  charged  with 
portentous  significance.  And  that  this  deceitful- 
ness would  imperil  believers  themselves  is  shown 
by  the  repeated  biblical  injunction,  "Let  no  man 
deceive  you,"  and  by  the  warning  that  those 
prophets  of  evil  would  appear  who  "would,  if 
possible,  deceive  the  very  elect."  This  never- 
ceasing  danger  led  Saint  Paul  to  exhort  his  "chil- 
dren in  the  Lord"  to  "walk  circumspectly,"  that 
is,  with  their  eyes  wide  open,  and  caused  the 
unknown  who  gave  us  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
to  fill  his  pages  with  solemn  warnings  to  the  chil- 
dren of  God. 

More  than  in  all  else,  however,  soul  safety  and 
the  assurance  of  spiritual  growth  are  found  in 


80      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

prayer.  The  solution  of  every  spiritual  problem 
is  found  in  prayer.  The  right  answer  to  every 
question  of  casuistry  is  secured  through  prayer. 
To  the  man  who  honestly  and  persistently  asks 
God's  guidance,  that  guidance  will  be  given.  He 
will  not  be  preserved  from  blunders,  but  he  will 
be  kept  from  sin.  Bad  habits  and  harmful  prac- 
tices, even  those  seemingly  harmless  things  which 
dwell  in  the  twilight  zone  of  ethics,  cannot  stand 
the  acid  test  of  God's  presence.  It  is  in  that 
presence  that  the  hitherto  "undiscovered  areas 
of  sin"  are  disclosed  to  the  earnest  seeker  for 
light,  and  it  is  there  that  the  battles  are  fought 
and  won  which  mean  the  ultimate  conquest  of 
those  areas.  Prayer — persistent  and  real — is  the 
surest  guarantee  of  complete  spiritual  self- 
revelation.  The  surest  way  to  "know  thyself" 
is  to  know  God  by  personal  communion.  The 
antidote  for  self-deception  and  all  the  illusions 
that  mislead  humanity  is  that  constant  fellowship 
with  the  Father  which  has  its  roots  in  the  will 
to  know  and  do  his  will  under  every  circumstance 
and  at  whatever  cost. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PREACHER  AND  THE  DEMAND  FOR 
A  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 


Definers  and  defenders  of  the  faith  are  always  needed, 
but  it  is  bad  for  a  church  when  its  ministers  count  it  their  true 
work  to  define  and  defend  the  faith  rather  than  to  preach  the 
gospel.  Beware  of  the  tendency  to  preach  about  Christian- 
ity, and  try  to  preach  Christ.  To  discuss  the  relations  of 
Christianity  and  science,  Christianity  and  society,  Christian- 
ity and  politics  is  good.  To  set  Christ  forth  to  men  so  that 
they  shall  know  him,  and  in  gratitude  and  love  become  his — 
that  is  far  better. — Phillips  Brooks. 

Whatever  else  this  war  has  done  to  thoughtful  men  in  the 
army,  it  has  made  them  see  that  life  is  short,  that  only  a  few 
great  things  in  religion  matter,  and  that  it  is  a  waste  of  breath 
to  spend  much  time  on  accidentals. — Harry  Emerson  Fosdick. 

Sin  has  no  place  in  the  vocabulary  of  science.  Therefore 
men  of  culture  are  not  bothering  about  their  sins,  still  less 
about  their  punishment. — Sir  Oliver  Lodge. 

The  faith  which  magnifies  the  unmerited  and  sin-destroying 
grace  of  God  is  the  only  satisfying  religion,  because  it  is  the 
only  adequate  interpretation  of  all  the  facts. — G.  H.  Johnston- 
Ross. 

The  question  of  how  much  knowledge  or  intellectual  under- 
standing of  divine  things  is  indispensable  to  an  effective  faith 
is  one  that  we  cannot  answer.  Experience  shows  that  a  very 
slight  knowledge  may  often  be  sufficient  intellectual  founda- 
tion for  a  strong  and  efficient  faith.  Strength  of  faith  is  gov- 
erned more  by  willingness  of  heart  than  by  intellectual  dis- 
cernment.— Author  unknown. 

To  follow  Jesus,  even  though  one  does  not  fully  understand 
him;  to  do  the  will  even  if  one  has  not  learned  the  doctrine; 
to  perceive  through  much  darkness  that  the  Life  is  the  Light 
of  men;  these  are  the  marks  of  the  new  obedience. — Peabody. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PREACHER  AND  THE  DEMAND  FOR 
A  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

The  movement  toward  simplicity  in  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  and  message  has  been  gathering 
momentum  for  a  great  many  years.  The  trouble 
with  it  has  been  that  some  of  its  most  diligent 
promoters  have  been  actuated  by  mixed  motives 
and  have  had  in  mind  an  objective  of  dubious 
value.  The  elements  of  practicality  and  urgency 
have  now  been  injected  into  the  situation  by  a 
definite  and  repeated  request  by  the  men  in  the 
camps  and  trenches  for  "a  simple  gospel."  Here 
we  have  neither  a  set  of  modern  feudal  barons, 
crying  for  an  innocuous  pulpit  that  they  may 
continue  their  plundering  without  interruption, 
nor  a  group  of  narrow  dogmatists  whose  sole 
desire  is  to  have  the  truth  run  through  their  own 
little  mold,  nor  a  modern  cult  of  unrestricted 
progressives  set  upon  the  annihilation  of  all 
dogma,  but  a  multitude  of  hungry  men  who  want 
to  be  fed.  And  in  one  case,  at  least,  as  one  eccle- 
siastical leader  has  pointed  out,  they  furnish  as 
an  evidence  of  good  faith  an  avowal  of  belief  in 
God,  Christ,  and  man's  need  of  salvation. 


84      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

The  relation  of  this  sincere  request  to  the 
Church  as  a  whole  is  a  question  of  sufficient  com- 
plexity to  tax  the  power  of  the  wisest.  Strange 
to  say,  the  restatement  of  Christian  theology  in 
its  simplest  terms  and  the  formation  of  a  common 
creed  which  will  permit  Christian  unity  without 
spiritual  sterility  is  no  easy  task.  But  the  bear- 
ing of  the  request  on  the  man  in  the  pulpit  is  a 
different  matter.  To  him,  both  the  definite  de- 
mand and  "the  great  expectancy,"  formless  and 
inarticulate,  which  backgrounds  it,  become  an  im- 
perative summons  to  the  preaching  of  essentials, 
to  such  an  interpretation  of  God  and  Christ  and 
life  as  shall  not  only  convince  men's  minds,  but 
produce  in  them  conviction,  decision,  and  action. 
Probably  never  before  in  human  history  has  there 
been  such  an  almost  universal  weariness  of  sterile 
differences  and  meaningless  speculation,  a  "divine 
unrest,"  terminating  not  so  much  in  the  abstract 
question,  "What  is  truth?"  as  in  the  vital,  per- 
sonal question,  "What  must  I  do  to  do  the  work 
of  God?"  The  multitude  think  they  don't  want 
dogma,  but  in  the  best  sense  of  that  much-abused 
term,  that  is  just  what  they  do  want.  They  want 
a  "Thus  saith  the  Lord."  As  Dr.  William  V. 
Kelley  said  three  years  ago,  "What  this  dubitat- 
ing  age  needs  and  what  the  pulpit  must  give  is 
certainties-^^  And  the  pressing  need  and  positive 
demand  is  for  the  certainties  that  relate  to  the 


DEMAND  FOR  A  SIMPLE  GOSPEL    85 

adjustment  of  one's  life  to  God.  In  the  right- 
eously impatient  words  of  one  aroused  man,  "Was 
there  ever  a  time  when  the  race  had  such  a  crimson 
commentary  upon  Calvary?  Why  not  seize  it 
boldly  and  use  the  glorious  exegesis  without 
apology,  instead  of  dabbling  in  vague  hypotheses 
about  the  moral  influence  of  vicarious  suffering?" 
That  means  that  a  great  deal  that  has  passed 
for  preaching  in  the  past  twenty-five  years  will 
have  to  go.  It  must  go  because  it  consists  of 
the  bootless  discussion  of  irrelevant  questions, 
themes  which  have  no  bearing  upon  life.  It  was 
at  the  close  of  a  sermon  of  that  character  de- 
livered at  Northfield  by  one  of  the  erudite  scholars 
of  Great  Britain  that  Dwight  L.  Moody  ex- 
claimed, "What's  the  use  of  talking  to  these 
students  about  the  two  Isaiahs  when  the  great 
majority  of  them  don't  know  there's  one  yet?" 
And  a  young  college  editor  bore  melancholy 
testimony  to  the  net  results  of  such  preaching 
when  he  wrote:  "We  know  all  about  religion 
except  how  it  feels.  We  can  tell  all  about  the 
seven  big  religions  of  the  world  and  haven't  any. 
We  are  critical,  but  we  have  no  simple  faith  to 
help  our  life.  We  pick  out  good  and  bad  points 
in  all  religions,  pigeonhole  results,  and  cease  to 
worry."  It  is  now  quite  thoroughly  understood 
that  we  have  a  new  Bible  (which  everybody  has 
and  very  few  read),  and  a  New  Theology  (some 


86      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

of  which  is  as  ancient  as  the  earliest  heresies  in 
Christian  history),  and  a  new  psychology  and  a 
new   gospel    of    social    service,    that    Archbishop 
Ussher  and  his  chronology  are  both  passe,  and 
that  Adam  fell  up  and  not  down,  if,  indeed,  he 
ever  lived  at  all;  that  the  child  is  born  into  the 
kingdom  and  God  is  immanent  and  man  is  divine 
(though  he  often  acts  like  the  devil),  and  that  the 
gospel  has  social  implications.     The  time  has  now 
come  to  tell  men  just  as  plainly  as  possible  what 
they  must  do  to  be  saved,  whether  that  salvation 
is  viewed  as  rescue  or  the  recovery  of  the  total 
man  to  society  and  God.     "What  is  the  use  of 
sermons    that   mean   nothing    and   do   nothing.?" 
Or  what  is  the  use  of  pecking  away  at  the  leaves 
and   branches  when   the  ax  needs   to  be  laid  at 
the  root   of  the  tree;   of  flogging  men   for  not 
applying   their   religion    to    their   economic   life, 
when  a  great  many  of  them  have  none  to  apply.'* 
One  sermon  that  leads  men  to  say,  as  did  the 
thoroughly   aroused  Scot,   "I  am  determined  to 
go  out  and  do  the  devil  some  definite  damage," 
is  worth  a  hundred  that  establish  the  fact  of  the 
four  strands  in  Genesis  or  dilate  on  the  glories 
of  the  ideal  Kingdom,  without  arousing  a  single 
conscience.     Better  the  story  of  a  little  ewe  lamb, 
followed  by  such  a  cry  of  "Thou  art  the  man" 
as  to  bring  a  David  to  his  knees  in  shame-faced 
contrition  for  his  dastardly  sin,  than  an  elaborate 


DEMAND  FOR  A  SIMPLE  GOSPEL     87 

treatise  on  doctrine  or  life  which  leaves  the  trans- 
gressor undisturbed  in  his  smug  complacency  and 
the  common  man  saying,  "It  may  be  true,  but 
what  difference  does  it  make?" 

This  concentration  upon  the  essentials  and  the 
honest  effort  to  interpret  them  in  terms  of  ex- 
perience does  not  mean  that  the  constructive  con- 
clusions of  reverent  scholarship  will  be  set  aside, 
or  that  the  social  aspects  of  the  gospel  will  be 
ignored,  or  that  preaching  will  deteriorate  to  the 
monotonous  reiteration  of  a  few  set  phrases  and 
worn-out  themes.  It  means  that  all  the  riches 
of  knowledge  and  powers  of  man  will  be  focused 
upon  the  supreme  business  of  building  men  into 
the  kingdom  of  God.  The  value  of  a  sermon 
depends,  not  upon  its  subject,  but  upon  its  object. 
Its  gospel  quality  depends  not  so  much  upon  its 
circumference  as  upon  its  center.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  there  is  more  genuine  simplicity  in  the 
incisive  analysis  of  Robertson,  the  Attic  beauty 
of  Phillips  Brooks  or  the  exquisite  phrases  of 
Silvester  Home  than  in  the  extemporaneous  rant- 
ing of  one  whose  thought  is  muddy,  while  his 
vocabulary  is  limited.  And  there  is  more  real 
gospel  in  John  Wesley's  "Reformation  of  Man- 
ners" than  in  many  a  man's  labored  interpreta- 
tion of  the  atonement.  It  makes  little  difference 
where  a  man  starts  or  how  far  a-field  he  roams, 
provided  he  bring  his  hearers  at  last  face  to  face 


88      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

with  Jesus  Christ  and  leave  them  on  their  knees 
before  their  revealed  Lord  and  Redeemer.  Any- 
thing that  does  that  is  preaching.  And,  though 
many  do  not  realize  it,  that  is  an  achievement 
difficult  enough  to  tax  the  inspired  genius  of  the 
biggest  man  God  ever  made.  "To  urge  people 
to  follow  Christ  may  lead  to  the  merest  flabbiest 
pulpit  rhetoric;  the  effective  gospel  is  to  preach 
a  Christ  who  leaves  men  unable  to  do  anything 
else."  And  the  man  who  undertakes  to  do  that, 
to  attain  that  result  which  alone  constitutes  the 
justification  of  preaching,  will  find  ample  scope 
for  the  widest  knowledge  and  the  most  consum- 
mate skill. 

Of  course  the  men  in  the  pulpit  will  not  find 
themselves  in  agreement  as  to  the  content  of  this 
simple  gospel.  If  the  primary  purpose  of  bring- 
ing men  into  the  kingdom  of  God  be  dominant, 
it  is  not  necessary  that  they  should.  The  Holy 
Spirit  condescends  to  reach  the  hearts  of  men  by 
means  of  widely  differing  theologies  and  opinions. 
John  Wesley  and  George  Whitefield  fought  each 
other  over  the  vexing  questions  of  foreordination 
and  free  grace,  but  together  they  fought  the 
devil  with  the  offer  to  sinful  men  of  salvation  by 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  with  the  net  result  of  two 
continents  transformed.  But  the  point  to  be 
noted  is  that  their  circles  of  passionately  pro- 
claimed   truth    intersected    at    two    points,    the 


DEMAND  FOR  A  SIMPLE  GOSPEL    89 

Saviourhood  of  Christ  and  the  sinfulness  of  man. 
And  those  two  truths  must  inhere  in  the  message 
of  to-day,  or  it  were  better  that  we  had  never  been 
born.  As  the  learned  judge  said  to  the  young 
Whipple,  afterward  Bishop  Whipple,  "Don't 
preach  to  the  judge;  preach  to  the  sinful  man." 
Any  gospel  that  fails  to  probe  humanity's  moral 
sore  clear  to  the  core  is  not  a  simple  and  effectual, 
but  an  emasculated  and  ineffectual  gospel.  The 
chief  obstacle  in  the  path  of  an  overwhelming 
spiritual  awakening  is  the  universal  evasion  of 
personal  responsibility  for  sin.  0,  there  is  plenty 
of  the  "sense  of  sin,"  but  it  is  the  other  fellow's 
sin.  Modern  methods  of  wrongdoing  by  proxy, 
of  absentee  deviltry  of  all  kinds,  have  almost  de- 
stroyed that  consciousness  of  blameworthiness 
without  which,  in  spite  of  the  scoff  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  dribble  of  the  sentimentalist, 
moral  reconstruction  and  spiritual  regeneration 
are  improbable,  if  not  impossible. 

But  if  the  church  accuse  the  world  of  spiritual 
callousness  the  world  accuses  the  church  of  moral 
timidity  or  worse,  and  to  an  unbiased  observer 
it  looks  like  another  case  of  the  pot  and  the 
kettle.  Granted  everything  that  can  be  said  in 
praise  of  modern  Protestantism,  the  fact  remains 
that  some  men  have  not  sought  the  church's 
proffered  salvation  because  they  did  not  consider 
it  worth  the  having.     Judged  by  its  interpreta- 


90      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

tion  in  many  pulpits,  orthodox  as  well  as  hetero- 
dox, it  cost  nothing  except  languid  acquiescence 
to  a  few  devitalized  formulae,  and  judged  by  the 
membership  roll  it  resulted  all  too  often  in  com- 
placent hypocrisy  or  imperfectly  sterilized 
worldliness.  To  the  supersensitive  there  seemed 
to  be  a  rather  too  free  translation  of  the  half 
truth  contained  in  Lowell's  lines: 

••  'Tis  only  heaven  that  is  given  away, 
*Tis  only  God  may  be  had  for  the  asking." 

In  plain  terms  the  unpardonable  sin  of  which 
the  church  stands  accused  by  the  world  to-day 
is  ethical  insincerity.  In  spite  of  Beecher's  tart 
statement  that  "You  can't  pray  cream  and  live 
skimmed  milk,"  there  are  many  trying  to  achieve 
that  moral  impossible.  And  the  gravity  of  the 
situation  is  intensified  by  the  fact  that  in  many 
instances  the  heads  of  the  churches  know  it  and 
do  nothing  about  it.  Grant  that  church  member- 
ship does  not  connote  perfection  (though  it  does 
connote  sincerity),  and  that  the  administration 
of  church  discipline  is  a  difficult  and  delicate  busi- 
ness at  the  best,  the  fact  remains  that  a  revival 
of  religion  whose  initial  characteristic  consisted 
of  a  courageous  and  thorough  ecclesiastical  house- 
cleaning  would  stand  a  fair  chance  of  having  as 
its  crowning  glory  a  countless  multitude  of 
genuine  conversions.     It  is  immensely  significant 


DEMAND  FOR  A  SIMPLE  GOSPEL    91 

that  John  Wesley  conducted  no  campaigns  for 
church  membership  and  with  a  fine  disregard  for 
both  the  parable  of  the  wheat  and  the  tares  and 
annual  statistics,  made  no  ado  about  dropping 
hundreds  of  delinquents  at  a  time.  In  short,  there 
is  great  need  of  our  being  reminded,  in  our  eager- 
ness to  meet  the  demands  of  the  times,  that  "noth- 
ing can  be  taken  away  by  a  broader  theology 
from  the  relentlessness  of  the  moral  process  of 
salvation.  One  may  change  one's  conception  of 
the  Supreme  Being  from  Moloch  to  our  Father 
in  heaven,  from  the  destroyer  to  the  Saviour  of 
mankind,  but  until  one  shall  agonize  in  the  conflict 
with  passion  and  through  heroic  suffering  put 
on  the  form  of  righteousness,  there  can  be  no 
improvement."  If  it  is  true  that  the  simple 
gospel  so  desired  to-day  in  order  to  be  an  effec- 
tual gospel  must  have  its  roots  in  the  blood- 
stained soil  of  Calvary,  it  is  also  true  that  it 
must  have  as  its  first  and  finest  fruit  a  morally 
reconstructed  and  spiritually  regenerated  per- 
sonality. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
NOVEMBER  AND  JUNE  IN  RELIGION 


The  Crucifix  stood  there,  an  emblem  of  sad  and  noble 
truths — that  pleasure  is  not  an  end  but  an  accident,  and  that 
pain  is  the  choice  of  the  magnanimous. — Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son. 

The  idea  shared  by  many  that  life  is  a  vale  of  tears  is  just 
as  false  as  the  idea,  shared  by  the  great  majority,  the  idea  to 
which  youth  and  health  and  riches  incline  you,  that  life  is  a 
place  of  entertainment.  Life  is  a  place  of  service,  and  in  the 
service  one  has  to  suflFer  at  times  a  good  deal  that  is  hard  to 
bear,  but  more  often  to  experience  a  great  deal  of  joy.  But 
that  joy  can  be  real  only  if  people  look  upon  their  life  as  a 
service,  and  have  a  definite  object  in  life  outside  themselves 
and  their  personal  happiness. — Tolstoi  to  his  son,  Ilya. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
NOVEMBER  AND  JUNE  IN  RELIGION 

J.  Beierley  likened  the  Puritan  type  of  piety 
to  a  November  fog  and  affirmed,  in  striking 
phrase,  that  its  chief  function  was  the  exhalation 
of  gloom.  It  was  an  apt  characterization,  so 
apt  that  one  could  fairly  feel  the  chill  of  the 
sunless  spiritual  autumn. 

If  the  inimitable  essayist  had  described  early 
twentieth-century  spirituality  in  meteorological 
metaphor,  I  wonder  if  he  would  not  have  called 
it  the  religion  of  June  sunshine  and  declared  that 
its  chief  function  was  the  radiation  of  cheerful- 
ness. Instead  of  the  thunders  of  Calvinism  there 
was  the  genial  warmth  of  a  liberal  theology,  with 
special  emphasis  on  the  kindliness  of  God  and 
the  divinity  of  man.  Instead  of  the  dismal  doc- 
trine that  this  life  is  a  probation  and  that  self- 
realization  is  attained  by  the  suppression  of  all 
natural  instincts,  there  was  the  enthusiastic  belief 
that  this  world  was  given  man  to  enjoy  and  that 
normal  expression  leads  to  self-realization.  In- 
stead of  hair-raising  hymns  and  somber  volumes 
like  Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dying  and  Foxe's 
95 


96      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

Book  of  Martyrs,  there  were  the  sunshine  and 
glory  songs,  and  what  some  carping  critic  has 
called  "the  O  Let  Us  Be  Joyful"  books.  Out 
on  the  periphery  were  the  new-born  but  lusty 
sects  with  the  slogans,  "Follow  us  and  you  will 
be  happy;  follow  us  and  you  will  be  healthy; 
follow  us  and  you  will  be  prosperous."  Of  course 
there  were  exceptions  and  variations,  but  the  pre- 
vailing type  of  spirituality  (we  no  longer  use  the 
word  "piety")  in  the  early  years  of  the  twentieth 
century  was  strikingly  like  the  exhilarating  at- 
mosphere of  an  early  summer  day. 

There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  change. 
If  proof  texts  were  not  out  of  style,  I  would  say 
that  the  Scriptures  themselves  are  responsible 
for  the  statement  that  a  merry  heart  doeth  good 
like  a  medicine.  "Some  days  must  be  dark  and 
dreary,"  but  an  unrelieved  stretch  of  gloomy 
weather  is  both  dismal  and  depressing.  Sunshine 
is  as  necessary  to  the  health  of  the  spirit  as  it 
is  to  the  health  of  the  body.  The  trouble  with 
the  Puritan  was  that  he  was  so  intent  upon  look- 
ing at  the  graveyard  that  he  couldn't  see  the 
sky.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  assurances  that  we  were 
making  marvelous  progress,  there  seemed  to  be 
something  lacking.  The  easy-going  benevolence 
and  irrepressible  good  spirits  of  a  generation  that 
loved  amusements  and  resented  restrictions  of  any 
kind  did  not  seem  to  produce  any  better  men  or 


NOVEMBER  AND  JUNE  97 

bring  in  the  kingdom  of  God  any  faster  than  did 
the  vertebrate  narrowness  of  Cromwell  and  his 
Roundheads  or  the  stubborn  loyalty  to  conscience 
which  drove  the  Mayflower  and  her  psalm-singing 
passengers  through  the  perils  of  an  uncharted 
sea  to  the  forbidding  fastnesses  of  an  untamed 
wilderness.  In  spite  of  the  determination  to  be 
happy  there  was  unrest,  a  growing  conviction 
that  while  God  was  in  his  heaven,  all  was  not  right 
with  the  world.    And  then  came  the  war. 

The  relation  of  the  war  to  religion  is  even  yet 
a  matter  of  controversy  and  conjecture.  Of 
some  things,  however,  we  are  sure.  The  world- 
conflict  was  at  once  a  revealer  of  the  need  of 
change  and  the  cause  of  change.  It  not  only 
exposed  the  rottenness  of  our  civilization,  but 
also  knocked  a  great  deal  of  our  theology  and 
philosophy  into  a  cocked  hat.  You  talk  about 
the  war  abolishing  theology.  It  was  God 
Almighty's  demand  for  a  theology  thorough 
enough  to  account  for  the  lurking  devilishness 
as  well  as  the  spiritual  possibilities  in  human 
nature.  Man  may  be  divine,  but  he  certainly 
is  capable  of  moral  lapses  which  suggest  that 
there  was  more  than  a  germ  of  truth  in  the  cast- 
off^  doctrine  of  total  depravity.  The  serious  busi- 
ness of  reconstructing  a  shattered  world  is  dis- 
closing to  thoughtful  men  the  puerility  of  the 
pursuit  of  happiness.     Happiness  is  not  an  end. 


98      THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

In  fact,  the  New  Testament  says  nothing  at  all 
about  its  being  a  part  of  the  Christian  life.  To 
all  those  who  came  after  him  the  Master  offered 
peace  in  the  midst  of  life's  turmoil,  blessedness, 
often  with  persecution,  and  that  heaven-born  joy 
which  earth's  vicissitudes  could  not  disturb  or 
destroy.  Orison  Swett  Marden's  book  on  "How 
to  Get  What  You  Want"  has  perished  in  the 
rarified  atmosphere  of  a  new  world  spirit — an- 
other proof  of  "the  expulsive  power  of  a  new 
affection."  We  are  not  here  to  get  what  we  want, 
but  to  do  the  will  of  God  and  welcome  the  conse- 
quences. The  New  Testament  promise  to  the 
faithful  is  not  prosperity,  but  Life.  Of  course 
godliness  is  profitable,  but  he  who  tries  to  become 
godly  for  profit  will  end  in  the  devil's  almshouse, 
and  he  who  draws  the  biggest  dividends  will  find 
they  are  not  paid  in  the  coin  of  the  realm.  This 
life  is  both  privilege  and  a  probation.  This  world 
was  given  us  to  enjoy,  but  woe  to  him  who  loves 
the  world  and  so  crowds  out  the  love  of  God. 
Self-realization  is  attained  by  expression,  but  it 
is  not  attained  by  self-indulgence.  Our  appetites 
were  given  us  to  master,  not  to  gratify.  Re- 
nunciation, self-denial,  suffering  for  the  sake  of 
others — that  is  the  thorny  and  glorious  path  by 
which  we  attain  the  heights.  In  other  words,  we 
possess  by  sharing;  we  get  all  that  is  worth  while 
in  life  only  as  we  forget  everything  in  the  pas- 


NOVEMBER  AND  JUNE  99 

sionate  love  of  God  and  man;  we  live  only  as  we 
die.  Of  all  these  truths,  which  are  as  old  as  God, 
this  crucial  time  is  reminding  men.  Not  all  will 
learn  the  lesson,  for  there  are  always  those  who 
have  eyes  and  see  not,  ears  have  they  and  hear 
not.     But  the  elect  will  see  and  understand. 

But  the  war  did  more  than  reconstruct  men's 
thinking.  It  saved  men's  souls.  It  "stabbed  men 
awake."  Poor  Elijah  wept  because  he  alone  of 
the  faithful  was  left.  And  all  the  time  there  were 
seven  thousand  who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to 
Baal.  So  the  holy  remnant  in  the  early  years 
of  the  twentieth  century  bewailed  the  lack  of  the 
noble  and  spiritual  in  the  younger  generation, 
and  the  heroic  and  godly  were  not  dead  at  aU: 
they  were  only  half  suffocated.  We  did  the  best 
we  could  to  spoil  our  young  people,  to  make  them 
irresponsible  and  lawless  and  luxury-lovers  and 
weaklings,  but  all  the  time  God  was  at  work  in- 
side, fostering  that  "homesickness  for  heaven" 
that  makes  the  far  country  a  miserable  makeshift 
and  earth  itself  but  a  wayside  inn.  All  that  was 
needed  was  something  big  enough  and  compelling 
enough  to  grip,  and  it  came.  Not  all  reacted 
favorably  to  the  stimulus,  but  multitudes  did. 
Donald  Hankey  was  not  the  only  one  to  find 
peace  and  the  highest  self  "over  there."  On  the 
mutilated  bosom  of  France,  Belgium,  Italy,  and 
the  East,  many  a  youth  found  not  only  a  deeper 


100    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

philosophy  of  life  but  life  itself,  and  found  it  in 
the  old,  old  way  of  faith  in  a  Personal  Redeemer 
and  vicarious  suffering  for  humanity.  Some  were 
granted  the  priceless  privilege  of  martyrdom. 
Some  may  lose  the  vision  with  the  return  of  peace 
and  its  enticements.  But  others — God's  own — 
were  not  only  disillusioned  but  illumined,  not 
simply  chastened  but  sanctified,  equipped  to  lead 
humanity  into  the  truth  that  maketh  free,  the 
knowledge  and  possession  of  a  Christianity  that 
is  buoyant  without  being  superficial  and  serious 
without  being  somber,  the  Christianity  of  con- 
scious oneness  with  Christ. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  NEED  OF  A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF 
GOD 


A  cheap  theology  ends  in  a  cheap  life. — Henry  Drummond. 

It  is  a  matter  of  history  that  the  broadening  of  creeds  has 
usually  been  accompanied  by  a  great  decay  of  zeal  on  the 
part  of  believers. — George  A.  Gordon. 

We  feel  ourselves  to  be  separated  from  God,  and  conse- 
quently crippled  in  our  faith  by  things  which  troubled  the 
ancients  very  little.  Therefore  the  only  God  who  can  reveal 
himself  to  us  is  one  who  shows  himself  to  us  in  our  moral 
struggle  as  the  Power  to  which  our  souls  are  really  subject. 
This  is  what  is  vouchsafed  to  us  in  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ. 

If  there  be  any  rationality  in  the  universe  at  all,  then  the 
life  into  which  we  go  must  be  the  logical  and  inevitable  out- 
come of  the  life  lived  here.  In  this  sense,  at  least,  some 
judgment  must  always  be  passed  upon  the  life,  and  account- 
ability must  always  stand. — Henry  Churchill  King. 

Where  consideration  has  so  often  been  freshened  by  new 
providences  and  new  revelations  of  God,  and  all  best  capaci- 
ties of  truth  and  feeling  have  been  mocked  and  hardened  by 
the  abuses  of  a  life,  what  magic  is  there  to  be  in  the  strange 
environment  and  discoveries  of  another  state  of  being,  that 
they  are  going  to  make  men  susceptible  without  susceptibili- 
ties left,  and  turn  them  back  to  the  right  which  they  have 
lost  the  sense  of,  and  from  which  they  have  all  their  life  long 
turned  uncaringly  away? — Horace  Bushnell. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  NEED  OF  A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF 
GOD 

It  is  now  quite  generally  agreed  that  Ger- 
many's madness  can  be  traced  straight  back  to 
Germany's  apostasy.  Putting  the  facts  in  terms 
of  national  life,  it  is  said  that  German  Kultur, 
with  its  brood  of  insane  and  piratical  acts,  is 
the  legitimate  offspring  of  German  rationalism. 
Or,  personalizing  the  whole  matter,  it  is  stated 
that  ex-Emperor  William's  philosophy  and  con- 
duct are  alike  fiendish  because  his  god,  with  whom 
he  seemed  for  so  long  to  be  on  astonishingly  fa- 
miliar terms,  is  not  the  Christian  God  at  all,  but 
some  barbaric  deity.  Here  is  another  case  of  a 
man's  becoming  like  the  being  whom  he  worships. 

It  has  not  yet  been  said  that  the  same  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  holds  good  in  the  case  of  the 
modem  world's  conception  of  God  and  its  moral 
and  spiritual  state;  and  yet  the  available  facts 
are  just  as  convincing.  Look  at  the  situation. 
The  three  things  most  frequently  postulated  con- 
cerning God  are,  first,  that  he  is  love;  second, 
that  he  is  our  Father ;  third,  that  he  is  immanent 
in  the  universe  of  which  he  is  the  Creator.  And 
103 


104    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

of  the  three,  the  most  frequently  affirmed  and 
the  universally  accepted  is  that  he  is  Love.  Even 
when  men  think  of  him  as  Father,  it  is  as  the 
loving  Father.  And  even  when  they  talk  of  his 
immanence,  they  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  he  is 
immanent  in  love.  The  stupendous  fact  that  God 
is  Love  has  captured  the  imagination  of  Christen- 
dom. 

Now,  rightly  interpreted  and  viewed  in  its  rela- 
tion to  the  whole  body  of  revealed  truth,  that 
one  of  the  eternal  verities  is  of  superlative  value 
to  mankind.  "When  John  wrote  his  copulative 
sentence  in  his  first  epistle,  he  inaugurated  a  new 
era  in  Christian  understanding."  But  right 
there  lies  the  crux  of  the  existing  situation.  This 
truth  is  not  rightly  interpreted,  and  it  is  viewed 
entirely  apart  from  its  relation  to  the  whole  body 
of  truth.  In  that  statement  I  am  not  referring 
to  the  fact  that  much  of  our  modern  theology  is 
not  orthodox,  but  to  the  obvious  fact  that  the 
popular  or  prevailing  idea  of  God  is  as  far  from 
the  truth  as  is  the  ex-emperor's.  "We  hold  in  our 
mind  conceptions  of  God  that  are  not  much  better 
than  the  Kaiser's."  In  his  discussion  of  "The 
Unity  of  God's  Character,"  William  Newton 
Clarke  says:  "We  ascribe  to  God  certain  quali- 
ties of  character,  set  forth  in  familiar  terms,  but 
when  we  come  to  define  them  we  are  under  the 
influence    of    our   own   limitations,    and   however 


A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD       105 

large  and  worthy  the  terms  that  we  use,  our  con- 
ceptions are  sure  to  become  narrowed  toward  the 
dimensions  of  humanity.  Naturally,  if  not  in- 
evitably, we  bring  the  perfection  of  God  down 
toward  our  own  imperfections." 

That  is  exactly  what  has  happened  in  the  pres- 
ent instance.  The  common  man  has  reduced  the 
statement  "God  is  Love"  to  the  perilous  propor- 
tions of  the  half-truth.  The  equally  momentous 
fact  that  He  is  holy,  that  "our  God  is  a  consum- 
ing fire,"  has  been  almost  absolutely  obliterated 
from  his  consciousness.  Whether  right  or  wrong 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  strictly  orthodox 
theology,  men  look  upon  God  as  their  Father. 
They  have  forgotten  that  he  is  likewise  their 
Creator;  their  Sovereign,  to  whom  they  owe 
allegiance;  and  their  Judge,  before  whom  they 
must  stand  at  last  and  give  an  account  of  "the 
deeds  done  in  the  flesh." 

Furthermore,  the  modern  idea  of  God  errs 
not  only  in  its  isolation  of  the  central  truth  of 
the  gospel,  but  in  its  distortion  of  that  truth. 
The  perfection  of  God  has  been  brought  down 
to  our  imperfections.  Or,  in  the  blatant  words 
of  the  skeptic  IngersoU,  "Man  has  created  God 
in  his  own  image."  The  love  of  God  has  been 
evacuated  of  all  ethical  significance  and  all  conse- 
quent spiritual  compulsion.  It  has  been  trans- 
lated into  terms  of  mawkish  sentimentalism.     In 


106    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

these  days  of  a  minimized  parental  authority,  the 
average  man  believes  in  a  Fatherhood  of  God 
devoid  of  all  moral  and  spiritual  exactions.  He 
has  not  thought  the  matter  out  calmly  and  thor- 
oughly, for  he  does  not  do  things  that  way.  But 
"there  is  a  logic  of  the  hopes  and  fears  that 
insidiously  smuggles  its  conclusions  into  the  realm 
of  the  intellect."  By  this  devious  and  perilous 
route  he  has  come  to  two  more  or  less  clearly 
defined  convictions. 

The  first  is  that  God  is  not  very  exacting  with 
his  weak  and  erring  children.  This  kindly  dis- 
posed and  thoroughly  indulgent  Parent  not  only 
does  not  hold  his  imperfect  children  blameworthy 
for  their  shortcomings,  but  he  willingly  accepts 
generosity  in  place  of  righteousness,  humani- 
tarian activities  as  a  substitute  for  "unspotted- 
ness  from  the  world,"  and  spasms  of  virtuous 
emotion  as  something  "just  as  good"  as  the  sur- 
render of  the  will. 

The  other  conviction  or  vague  feeling  which 
men  have  about  God  to-day  is  that  he  is  eternally 
accessible.  It  is  not  so  much  a  belief  that  they 
will  have  in  the  next  world  a  chance  to  measure 
up  to  the  rigid  requirements  of  a  moral  and 
morally  exacting  God  as  it  is  that  this  easy- 
going quality  in  the  divine  character  is  perma- 
nent; thus  making  the  salvation  of  all  men,  how- 
ever   far    short    they    may    have    fallen    of    the 


A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD       107 

Christian  requirement,  an  assured  fact.  The 
average  man,  in  his  1ool3  thinking,  has  not  postu- 
lated a  second  probation.  He  has  done  away  with 
the  idea  of  probation  entirely.  In  a  strikingly 
calm,  dispassionate  article  on  "Religion  in  War 
Times,"  published  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  of 
September,  1918,  Dr.  William  Ernest  Hocking, 
professor  of  philosophy  at  Harvard  University, 
says  of  the  soldier  who  enlisted  in  the  Allied 
cause:  "Always  there  is  something  that  sets  this 
particular  act  of  dedication  [enlistment]  apart 
in  the  mind  of  the  decider.  ...  It  tends  to  put 
him  on  fundamental  good  terms  with  the  invisible 
universe  as  with  visible  society.  And  it  is  likely 
to  serve  as  an  unuttered  argument  to  the  effect 
that  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  will  not  be  too  hard 
on  him,  whatever  happens." 

It  is  unnecessary  at  this  time  to  enlarge  on  the 
fact  that  a  vast  number  of  good  people  have 
translated  that  vague  feeling  into  a  certainty, 
and  affirmed  without  hesitation  that  "going  over 
the  top"  means  salvation.  It  is  quite  essential, 
however,  to  call  attention  to  the  yet  more  sig- 
nificant fact  that  vast  numbers  who  never  saw 
the  front-line  trenches  are  obsessed  with  the  idea 
that  "God  will  not  be  too  hard  on  them,  whatever 
happens."  In  the  three  years  just  past,  espe- 
cially, I  have  talked  with  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men,  with  men  to  many  of  whom  it  might  truth- 


108    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

fully  be  said,  "Many  things  thou  lackest";  and 
I  found  them  all  complacent  and  calm  as  regards 
their  future.  As  one  dissolute  man  said,  "If  my 
Father  won't  take  care  of  me,  who  will?"  Or, 
as  another  put  it,  in  speaking  of  a  mutual  friend 
who  had  passed  through  a  period  of  genuine  con- 
viction of  sin,  "That's  all  bosh.  The  Almighty 
doesn't  require  that  of  anybody." 

The  prevailing  opinion  as  to  the  destiny  of 
those  who  have  died,  whatever  their  moral  and 
spiritual  state  at  the  time  of  their  exit,  is  plainly 
stated  by  Elizabeth  Ashe  in  her  story  Appraise- 
ment. The  story  begins  with  the  announcement  of 
Alan  Reid's  suicide,  and  the  subsequent  discovery 
by  his  young  widow  that  he  had  been  a  defaulter 
of  trust  funds,  and,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  was 
living  in  illicit  relations  with  his  secretary.  Indig- 
nant and  ashamed,  she  went  to  call  on  his  mother, 
but  found  her  enumerating  his  good  qualities  as 
a  child.  Together  they  read  his  old  letters, 
enlarged  upon  his  cast-ofF  virtues,  and  decided 
that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  went  out  of 
this  world  a  thief,  an  adulterer,  and  a  suicide, 
he  would  ultimately  be  all  right.  The  author 
sums  up  her  philosophy  in  a  final  statement  which 
she  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the  young  widow: 
"Past  and  present  are  only  a  part  of  a  life. 
There's  the  future,  the  long  future  to  complete 
him.     He  will  go  on — with  us,  dear." 


A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD       109 

In  Dr.  Hocking's  analysis  of  the  consciousness 
of  the  soldier,  and  Elizabeth  Ashe's  doctrine  of 
the  destiny  of  a  scoundrel,  we  have  the  modern 
idea  of  God  at  perigee  and  apogee.  Not  only  the 
man  who  enlisted,  but  also  the  sentimentalists  of 
all  shades,  the  intellectualists,  and  as  many  of  the 
social  idealists  as  believe  in  a  future  at  all,  have 
taken  the  yearning  of  "the  larger  hope,"  and  the 
hypothesis  of  "the  upward  thrust  by  a  Universal 
Spirit,"  and  "the  half  truths  and  false  psy- 
chology of  popular  altruism,"  and  the  erroneous 
conclusions  of  Christian  Science,  and  evolved 
either  an  indulgent  Parent  who  is  too  tender- 
hearted to  punish  anybody  or  an  automatic  salva- 
tion in  which  all  men  are  included,  willy-nilly. 

It  is  to  be  expected  that  such  views  of  God 
and  destiny  would  rob  religion  of  its  solemnity, 
life  of  its  moral  compulsion,  and  conscience  of 
its  authority.  Fifty  years  ago,  in  his  sermon 
entitled  "One  Chance  Better  than  Many,"  Horace 
Bushnell  pointed  out  the  psychological  stupidity 
and  moral  peril  of  such  a  flabby  and  unethical 
faith,  if  it  can  be  called  a  faith.  To  assume  for 
a  moment  that  man  can  spend  his  whole  life  here 
consciously  choosing  the  lower  and  inferior, 
letting  the  animal  in  him  dominate  the  spiritual, 
substituting  self-will  for  the  will  of  God,  and  then, 
in  the  next  world,  by  some  magical  power  of 
divine  love,  either  be  made  selfish  and  blessed  at 


110    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

the  same  time  or  be  transformed  into  an  angel  of 
light,  is  to  do  violence  to  all  the  teachings  of 
psychology  and  to  corrupt  human  life  at  its 
center.  "It  is  a  very  self-evident  fact  that  if 
we  had  two  or  more  trials  offered  us,  we  should 
be  utterly  slack  and  neglectful  in  the  first  and 
should  bring  it  to  its  end  almost  inevitably  in  a 
condition  utterly  unhopeful."  It  is  just  as  true 
of  ideas  as  it  is  of  men,  that  "by  their  fruits  ye 
shall  know  them."  To  put  it  subjectively,  and 
to  use  a  sorely  overworked  and  much  abused 
Scripture  saying,  ^'as  he  thinketh  in  his  heart, 
so  is  he."  Experience  proved  to  John  Wesley 
that  a  liberal  theology  does  not  always  connote 
a  low  moral  character  in  the  individual,  for  he 
found  that  there  were  heterodox  saints  as  well 
as  orthodox  sinners.  But  historical  experience 
has  proved  beyond  peradventure  that  a  flabby 
and  unethical  conception  of  God,  comprehending 
a  "posthumous  salvation" — what  Bushnell  iron- 
ically calls  "a  basement  gospel" — reacts  disas- 
trously upon  the  race  as  a  whole.  It  is  the  merest 
commonplace  that  the  element  of  reverence  has 
gone  from  our  modern  religion.  With  the  sense 
of  God's  holiness  has  gone  the  sense  of  man's 
sinfulness,  and  with  the  ethical  conception  of  the 
Divine  character  has  gone  much  of  the  reality 
from  our  religion.  There  is  no  use  in  contrasting 
the  Present  and  the  Past,  in  putting  the  worst 


A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD       111 

of  to-day  beside  the  best  of  yesterday.  But 
neither  is  anything  to  be  gained  by  glossing  over 
the  facts.  The  triad  of  sins  which  curses  the 
modem  world  is  made  up  of  hypocrisy,  compro- 
mise, and  presumption.  There  are  many  in  the 
church  who  are  substituting  philanthropic  ac- 
tivity for  spiritual  vitality,  formal  religion  for 
a  saving  faith,  forgetting  God's  insistent  demand, 
"Wash  you,  make  you  clean;  put  away  the  evil 
of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes."  Vain 
oblations  have  changed  in  outer  aspect,  but  they 
are  still  offered  by  those  who  dream  of  a  God 
who  can  be  placated  by  gifts.  The  excuse  that 
"a  man  must  live"  is  offered  in  extenuation  for 
corrupt  business  practices  and  participation  in 
questionable  enterprises.  Instead  of  a  social 
order  based  upon  the  clear  consciousness  that 
"you  can't  compromise  on  the  big  things  of  life," 
we  have  what  Howells  gently  designates  as  "that 
easy-going,  not  evilly-intentioned  potential  im- 
morality, which  regards  common  property  as 
common  prey."  The  universal  assumption  is 
that  the  exalted  ethic  of  revealed  truth  must  give 
way  before  the  pressure  of  individual  physical 
necessities  and  a  hostile  social  order.  The 
astounding  thing  about  the  world  in  general  is 
not  that  moral  laxity  exists,  but  that  in  a  multi- 
tude of  cases  it  is  justified  by  the  specious  plea 
of  "moral  freedom."     And  while  the  world  war 


112    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

has  modified  some  of  these  evils,  it  has  left  others 
untouched. 

There  are  not  wanting  those  who  say  that  all 
this  is  due  to  the  lack  of  a  "social  consciousness." 
Unless  I  have  read  both  my  Bible  and  my  history 
upside  down,  it  is  due,  primarily  at  least,  to  the 
lack  of  a  "God  consciousness,"  of  a  deep  and  over- 
whelming realization  that  God's  love  is  ethical, 
that  God  himself  is  inexorably  exacting,  and  "life 
is  ethical  from  the  outset."  There  is  a  growing 
disdain  for  consequences,  because  there  are  no 
consequences  serious  enough  to  be  concerned 
about.  The  occasional  plea  of  the  old-fashioned 
preacher  to  "flee  from  the  wrath  to  come"  is 
received  with  supercilious  scorn  or  hilarious  con- 
tempt. The  simple  and  comfortable  fact  is  that 
there  is  nothing  to  flee  from.  The  average  man 
has  answered  Joseph  Cook's  question,  "Is  there 
nothing  in  God  to  fear.?"  with  just  two  words — 
"Absolutely  nothing."  And  so  he  either  contents 
himself  with  spiritual  minimums,  the  calm  confi- 
dence that  "God,  if  there  be  a  God,  will  not  be 
too  hard  on  him,  whatever  happens,"  or  the 
satisfying  hypothesis  that  the  mysterious  and 
unknown  forces  of  another  life  will  effect  in  his 
indiff^erent  soul  the  needed  transformation  which 
the  exigencies  of  this  life  could  not. 

Obviously,  then,  any  serious  attempt  to  make 
the  new  social  order  Christian  must  be  accom- 


A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD       113 

panied  by  a  rediscovery  of  the  Christian  God. 
And  that  means  that  we  must  turn  from  the 
philosophers  and  sentimentalists  and  intellectuals 
and  social  idealists,  and  endeavor  to  comprehend 
"the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ," 
revealed  to  us  not  only  in  what  Jesus  said  but 
also  in  what  he  was  and  did.  It  is  not  within 
the  purpose  of  this  essay  to  attempt  anything 
like  an  outline  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  God, 
but  it  is  to  insist  that  any  doctrine  or  conception 
worthy  of  the  name  Christian  must  emphasize  the 
ethical  consistency  and  unity  of  the  divine  char- 
acter. One  thing  that  the  race  needs  "in  order 
to  full  goodness"  is  a  clear  knowledge  of  the 
elements  that  go  to  make  up  Perfect  Personality, 
"with  a  perception  of  what  they  mean  and  what 
they  require."  Two  generations  ago  men  needed 
to  be  told  that  "God  is  Love,"  that  he  is  on  their 
side.  To-day  they  need  to  know  that  God's  love 
is  moral  through  and  through,  that  he  is  not  on 
their  side  unless  they  heed  his  voice  and  do  his 
will.  The  modern  world  sadly  needs  a  reemphasis 
of  God's  holiness  and  of  the  retributive  element 
which  inheres  in  that  holiness.  A  legal  enactment 
is  not  necessary  in  order  that  evildoers  be  pun- 
ished. The  severity  of  the  heavenly  Father  is 
as  essential  to  his  Fatherhood  as  is  his  goodness. 
Or,  putting  the  truth  in  the  terms  of  cause  and 
effect,  so  popular  in  this  scientific  age,  the  conse- 


114    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

quences  of  sin  are  written  into  the  moral  universe 
and  the  nature  of  man,  a  moral  being.  Further- 
more, "a  good  God  demands  that  his  children  be 
good,"  and  that  they  be  good  here  and  now,  or 
suffer  the  consequences.  To  do  away  with  the 
crucial  character  of  man's  decision  as  to  the 
fulfillment  of  his  obligations  to  God,  the  proba- 
tionary character  of  life,  and  "the  strict  limita- 
tion of  the  probationary  period  to  this  life,"  is 
to  deny  the  plain  and  explicit  teachings  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  man  who  insists  upon  the  claim  that 
"the  redemptive  purpose  of  God  must  continue 
forever"  ought  to  be  as  honest  as  was  Theodore 
Parker  when  he  said,  "I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ 
taught  the  everlasting  punishment  of  the  wicked, 
but  I  refuse  to  accept  it  on  his  authority."  He 
ought  to  go  farther  and  admit  that  his  God  is 
not  the  Christian  God.  Soft  and  easy  concep- 
tions of  God  have  no  place  in  Holy  Writ.  In  a 
terrific  arraignment  of  the  ex-Kaiser  and  a  most 
melancholy  prophecy  of  his  probable  destiny, 
Lyman  Abbott  says :  "I  believe  that  he  will  pass, 
as  we  all  must  pass,  from  the  deceptive  lights  and 
theatric  shows  of  this  world  to  the  revealing  lights 
and  stern  judgments  of  the  world  to  come.  There 
he  will  stand  for  judgment  before  Him  who  de- 
nounced as  a  generation  of  vipers,  fit  only  to  be 
cast  out  as  the  offal  of  the  universe  to  be  de- 
stroyed by  the  fires  of  Gehenna,  those  who  had 


A  NEW  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD        115 

devoured  widows'  houses  and  made  long  prayers. 
...  I  have  no  power  to  conceive  what  divine 
scorn  and  wrath  he  will  confront  who  has  spread 
over  half  a  continent  poverty,  famine,  disease, 
slavery,  and  death." 

Those  are  puissant  words,  and  right  well  do 
they  sound  in  an  age  of  soft  phrases  and  honeyed 
drippings.  But  is  William  Hohenzollern  to  face 
Almighty  God  in  solitary  shame  and  terror? 
Upon  him  alone  are  the  scorn  and  wrath  of  an 
outraged  Deity  to  be  poured  out.^^  What  of  the 
whited  sepulchers,  by  no  means  all  "made  in 
Germany,"  who  are  beautiful  without  but  within 
are  full  of  dead  men's  bones  and  all  uncleanness .? 
And  the  profiteers  who,  even  though  they  buy 
Liberty  Bonds  and  sing  "The  Star  Spangled 
Banner"  with  tearful  eyes,  justify  Samuel  John- 
son's blistering  affirmation  that  "patriotism  is  the 
last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel"?  And  the  impure, 
who  would  insult  a  holy  God  by  attempting  to 
offer  him  physical  courage  in  place  of  a  clean 
heart?  And  the  apostles  of  compromise,  between 
whose  private  life  and  business  practices  is  a 
"great  gulf  fixed"  ?  And  the  horde  of  selfish  and 
indifferent  who,  in  the  presence  of  the  unending 
conflict  between  the  forces  of  righteousness  and 
forces  of  evil,  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  cry,  "Come 
up  to  the  help  of  the  Lord,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord 
against  the  mighty"?     Is  it  true  that  God  will 


116    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

not  be  too  hard  on  them  or  that  the  upward 
thrust  of  a  Universal  Goodness  will  bring  them 
at  last  to  blessedness  and  perfection,  while,  cower- 
ing under  the  fury  of  an  indignant  Creator,  Wil- 
liam II  suffers  the  punishment  he  so  richly 
deserves  ? 

The  case  may  be  summed  up  in  a  sentence, 
"When  thy  judgments  are  on  the  earth,  then 
shall  its  inhabitants  learn  righteousness."  The 
part  of  Dr.  Abbott's  philippic  which  needs  to 
be  burned  into  the  consciousness  of  the  race  is 
"as  we  all  must  pass."  When  men  know  clearly 
and  feel  keenly  that  "God  cannot  be  an  enswath- 
ing  kiss  without  also  being  a  consuming  fire"; 
that  his  love  is  ethical  and  inexorably  exacting; 
that  his  insistent  demand  is  "for  a  careful  order- 
ing of  the  present  life  as  antecedent  to  and  deter- 
minant of  future  destiny";  then,  and  then  only, 
shall  we  have  a  conception  of  the  divine  character 
consistent  with  the  inspired  word  of  his  revela- 
tion, justified  by  psychology  and  historical  ex- 
perience, and  provocative  of  holy  living  and  holy 
dying.  A  Christian  social  order  or  a  widespread 
spiritual  quickening  of  the  race  without  a  clear. 
Christian  conception  of  God  is  a  moral  impossi- 
bility. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL  AND 
THE  MODERN  CHURCH 


It  is  an  age,  as  is  supposed,  of  great  light,  freedom  of 
thought,  and  discovery  of  truth  in  matters  of  religion,  the 
detection  of  the  weakness  and  bigotry  of  our  ancestors,  and 
of  the  folly  and  absurdity  of  the  nations  of  those  that  were 
accounted  eminent  divines  in  former  generations;  which  no- 
tions, it  is  imagined,  did  destroy  the  very  foundations  of  vir- 
tue and  religion  and  enervate  all  precepts  of  morality,  and  in 
effect  annul  all  difference  between  virtue  and  vice;  and  yet 
vice  and  wickedness  did  never  so  prevail  like  an  overflowing 
deluge.  It  is  an  age  wherein  those  mean  and  stingy  princi- 
ples, as  they  are  called,  of  our  forefathers,  which,  as  is  sup- 
posed, deformed  religion  and  led  to  unworthy  thoughts  of 
God,  are  very  much  discarded  and  grown  out  of  credit,  and 
supposed  more  free,  noble,  and  generous  thoughts  of  the 
nature  of  religion  and  of  the  Christian  scheme  are  enter- 
tained; but  yet  never  was  an  age  wherein  religion  in  general 
was  so  much  despised  and  trampled  on,  and  Jesus  Christ  and 
God  Almighty  so  blasphemed  and  treated  with  open,  daring 
contempt. — Jonathan  Edwards,  concerning  his  own  age. 

We  may  dissent  from  many  things  urged  by  them,  but 
they  saw  things  on  a  grand  scale.  The  Christianity  they 
taught  was  one  that  could  fill  the  horizon  of  an  intellectual 
age  and  could  inspire  the  awe-stricken  devotion  of  souls  like 
Milton  and  Zinzendorf  and  Doddridge  and  Toplady  and  the 
Wesleys.  Of  course  they  could,  for  it  was  a  Christianity  with 
the  Rock  of  Ages  as  its  foundation,  with  Calvary  at  its  heart, 
and  with  an  empty  tomb  as  its  seal  of  authority. — Charles 
Cuthbert  Hall. 

Little  has  been  done  in  our  age  toward  the  profounder  vis- 
ion of  the  eternal  in  religion.  It  is  humiliating  that  here  we 
can  do  no  more  than  prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord;  that  we  are 
fit  for  criticism,  but  not  for  insight,  able  to  consider  in  scientific 
order  what  others  have  created,  but  unable  to  bring  forth 
ourselves;  that  we  are  greater  than  the  men  of  old  in  research, 
but  immeasurably  beneath  them  in  the  richness  and  reality 
of  religion.  The  role  of  the  prophet  in  the  cleft  of  the  rock, 
witnessing,  so  far  as  mortal  man  may,  the  pageant  of  the 
Eternal  Goodness,  is  not  for  us;  we  are  content  to  investigate 
the  tradition  of  this  high  experience,  to  call  attention  to  the 
cleft  in  the  rock  and  the  rubbish  heap  at  either  end. — George 
A.  Gordon. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL  AND 
THE  MODERN  CHURCH 


Dr.  Harry  Emerson  Fosdick's  criticism  of  the 
modern  church,  published  in  the  January  Atlantic, 
under  the  title  "The  Trenches  and  the  Church 
at  Home,"  is  so  sane  and  constructive  that  it 
seems  like  rank  heresy  to  question  the  accurac^^ 
of  any  part  of  it.  There  is  one  paragraph,  how- 
ever, which  calls  for  more  than  passing  attention, 
not  only  because  it  contains  the  mature  judgment 
of  the  writer  of  the  article,  but  because,  as  he 
says,  it  embodies  in  substance  the  greatest  griev- 
ance which  many  good  men  have  against  organ- 
ized Christianity.  These  are  the  words  of  Dr. 
Fosdick: 

"The  churches  for  generations  have  been  urg- 
ing upon  us  an  individualistic  and  self-centered 
gospel.  We  have  been  continuously  supplied,  in 
hymns,  in  liturgies,  in  sermons,  with  Jonathan 
Edwards's  dominant  ideal,  *I  make  seeking  my 
salvation  the  main  business  in  my  life.'  Even 
when    this    self-regarding   motive    has    not    been 

119 


IW    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

centered  in  a  post-mortem  heaven,  it  has  been 
centered,  quite  as  selfishly,  on  this  present  life." 

Now,  as  I  understand  it,  that  is  not  a  criticism 
of  Jonathan  Edwards's  theology,  which  is  "a 
faded  tradition,"  or  the  emotional  excesses 
which  attended  the  great  awakening  and  the  Wes- 
leyan  revival.  It  is  an  indictment  of  the  ideal 
itself,  of  the  gospel  as  preached  by  Edwards  and 
Wesley  and  Whitefield  and  Finney  and  most  of 
the  other  religious  leaders  of  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  And,  as  I  see  it,  the  indict- 
ment really  includes  two  counts,  the  claim  that 
the  gospel  as  so  interpreted  was,  per  se,  "indi- 
vidualistic and  self-centered,"  and  the  claim  that 
the  modern  church  has  failed  to  retain  its  pri- 
macy in  human  affairs  because  of  its  stupid 
loyalty  to  that  ideal. 

I  wonder  if  that  is  really  so.  Is  it  really  true 
that  the  whole  genius  of  Christianity,  as  con- 
strued by  those  leaders  of  yesterday,  was  based 
upon  and  productive  of  "an  excessive  regard  to 
one's  personal  interest,"  and  that  the  modern 
church  has  become  ethically  sterile  and  socially 
ineffective  because  the  attention  of  those  who 
compose  it  has  been  centered  either  "on  a  post- 
mortem heaven  or,  quite  as  selfishly,  on  this  pres- 
ent life"? 

If  Jonathan  Edwards  and  his  contemporary, 
John  Wesley,  are  taken   as  the  most  illustrious 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    121 

exponents  of  that  individualistic  gospel,  and  if 
isolated  statements  by  them  are  taken  as  indica- 
tive of  its  true  character,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  case  does  indeed  look  bad.  Edwards 
did  say  that  he  made  seeking  his  salvation  the 
main  business  of  his  life,  and  with  all  the  vehe- 
mence of  his  fiery  eloquence,  he  urged  everybody 
else  to  do  the  same.  And,  though  separated  from 
him  by  celestial  diameters  in  theology,  Wesley  was 
absolutely  at  one  with  him  in  his  advocacy  of  that 
religious  ideal. 

When  he  sailed  for  Georgia,  ostensibly  to  min- 
ister to  the  Indians,  he  wrote  to  a  friend  and 
made  the  rather  startling  confession,  "My  chief 
motive  is  the  saving  of  my  own  soul."  Of  the 
fifty-nine  sermons  in  his  first  volume  of  published 
discourses,  only  one  bears  the  remotest  relation 
to  what  might  be  called  a  "social  gospel" — his 
sermon  before  the  Society  for  the  Reformation  of 
Manners — and  in  that  he  says,  frankly:  "This 
is  the  original  design  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
It  is  a  body  of  men  compacted  together  in  order, 
first  to  save  each  his  own  soul." 

In  his  sermon  at  the  foundation  of  City  Road 
Chapel  he  again  gives  expression  to  the  same 
theory,  referring  to  the  Methodists  as  "a  com- 
pany of  people,  associating  together  to  help  each 
other  work  out  their  own  salvation."  And,  as 
is  well  known,  he  wrote  into  the  constitution  of 


122    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

the  church  which  he  so  reluctantly  established, 
the  statement  that  the  only  condition  required 
of  anybody  for  membership  is  an  earnest  desire 
to  be  saved  from  his  sins  and  to  flee  from  the 
wrath  to  come. 

It  is  the  merest  commonplace,  however,  that 
a  snap  judgment,  based  upon  isolated  statements, 
is  unjust  to  any  man  or  any  movement.  By  that 
method  the  Christ  himself  would  be  condemned. 
What  did  Edwards  and  Wesley  really  mean  when 
they  insisted  that  a  man's  primary  business  in 
life  is  to  make  sure  of  the  salvation  of  his  own 
soul.'*  And  how  did  that  ideal  work.^*  In  other 
words,  what  were  its  individual  and  social  results? 
Only  as  we  try  to  answer  those  questions  honestly 
and  fairly  can  we  make  any  just  estimate  of  the 
spiritual  value  of  that  ideal. 

Peabody  says  that  "the  inadequacy  of  pru- 
dentialism  is  not  its  belief  that  to  save  one's  soul 
is  of  supreme  concern,  but  its  belief  that  one's 
soul  can  be  saved  alone."  If  that  is  true,  and  it 
is,  then  the  teachings  of  Edwards  and  the  teach- 
ings of  Wesley  after  his  attainment  of  an  inner 
spiritual  experience  are  forever  cleared  of  the 
imputation  of  prudentialism.  Can  anyone  read 
those  quaint  and  soul-searching  resolutions,  made 
by  that  serious-minded  New  England  youth  and 
fail  to  feel  the  impact  of  his  grim  determination 
not  only  to  become  absolutely  at  one  with  God, 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    123 

but  also  "to  do  whatever  I  think  to  be  my  duty 
and  most  for  the  good  and  advantage  of  mankind 
in  general,  whatever  difficulties  I  meet  with,  how 
many  and  how  great  soever"  ?  Can  any  thought- 
ful man  read  that  sermon  on  "The  Manner  of 
Seeking  Salvation,"  with  its  solemn  statement 
that  "It  is  a  business  of  great  labor  and  care; 
there  are  many  commands  to  be  obeyed,  many 
duties  to  be  done,  duties  to  God,  duties  to  our 
neighbor,  duties  to  ourselves,"  without  feeling 
that  in  the  mind  of  that  devout  mystic  seeking 
one's  salvation  was  a  very  comprehensive  and  far- 
reaching  enterprise?  When,  as  a  result  of  the 
preaching  of  that  gospel,  several  hundreds  were 
received  into  the  church  at  Northampton,  the 
covenant  required  of  them  was  that  "They 
solemnly  promise  and  vow  before  the  Lord  to 
have  a  strict  regard  to  rules  of  honesty,  justice, 
and  uprightness;  not  to  overreach  or  defraud 
him  (their  neighbor)  in  any  matter,  or  either 
willfully  or  through  want  of  care  to  injure  him 
in  any  of  his  honest  possessions  or  rights;  fur- 
ther, they  will  not  allow  their  private  interest 
or  honor  or  the  desire  for  victory  against  a 
contrary  party  to  lead  them  into  any  course  of 
which  their  consciences  would  reproach  them  as 
hurtful  to  religion  or  the  interests  of  Christ's 
kingdom;  and  particularly,  in  public  affairs,  not 
to  allow  the  interests  of  party  or  the  desire  of 


124    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

worldly  ambition  to  lead  them  counter  to  the 
interests  of  true  religion."  Can  the  harshest 
critic  of  the  religion  of  two  centuries  ago  take 
that  programme  at  its  face  value  without  feeling 
that  its  application  to  existing  conditions,  even 
in  this  age  of  ever-widening  conceptions  of  the 
gospel's  social  implications,  would  shake  the  whole 
social  order  to  its  very  foundations?  And  can 
anyone  read  Edwards's  denunciation  of  the 
element  of  religious  selfishness  in  the  popular 
Calvinism  of  his  day  and  his  insistence  that  "that 
affection  toward  God  which  arises  from  self-love 
is  a  mere  product  of  the  natural  man,  having  in 
it  nothing  of  the  supernatural  or  divine,"  without 
coming  to  see  that  the  very  tendencies  in  the 
modern  church  which  are  so  insistently  attributed 
to  the  influence  of  his  ideal  were  attributed  by 
him  to  the  misinterpretation  and  prostitution  of 
that  ideal?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  it  comes 
to  the  incisive  statement  that  the  only  real  test 
of  any  man's  religion  is  to  be  found  in  its  fruits, 
how  much  difference  is  there  between  the  widely 
acclaimed  statement  of  William  James  that  "the 
whole  defense  of  religious  faith  hinges  upon 
action,"  and  Edwards's  statement  that  "there  is 
not  one  grace  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  of  the  exist- 
ence of  which,  in  any  professor  of  religion.  Chris- 
tian practice  is  not  the  most  decisive  evidence"? 
Until   he   was    thirty-five   years    old  Wesley's 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    125 

interpretation  of  the  Christian  ideal  was,  without 
doubt,  narrow  and  selfish.  All  that  has  been 
said  by  Dr.  Fosdick  and  everybody  else  about  a 
"selfish  and  self-centered  gospel,"  could  be  said, 
with  absolute  accuracy,  about  his.  While  a 
fellow  at  Lincoln  College,  Oxford,  he  wrote  in 
his  Journal,  "I  resolved  to  have  only  such  ac- 
quaintances as  would  help  me  on  my  way  to 
heaven."  When  his  father,  the  aged  rector  at 
Epworth,  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  the  work 
there  falling  into  the  hands  of  a  dissolute  parson, 
wrote  and  asked  him  to  take  up  the  task,  he 
answered  with  twenty-six  highly  elaborated  rea- 
sons why  he  could  not,  "twenty-five  of  which  were 
essentially  selfish."  So  indignant  was  the  doughty 
old  apostle  that  he  wrote  to  his  ascetic  son:  "It 
is  not  dear  self,  but  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
different  degrees  of  promoting  it  which  should 
be  our  main  consideration  and  direction  in  the 
choice  of  any  course  of  life." 

At  thirty-five,  however,  Wesley  had  that  inner 
spiritual  experience  which  changed  his  whole  life. 
In  his  own  well-known  words:  "In  the  evening 
I  went  very  unwillingly  to  a  society  in  Aldersgate 
Street,  where  one  was  reading  Luther's  preface 
to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  About  a  quarter 
before  nine,  while  he  was  describing  the  change 
which  God  works  in  the  heart  through  faith  in 
Christ,   I   felt   my   heart   strangely   warmed.      I 


126    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

felt  I  did  trust  in  Christ,  Christ  alone  for  my 
salvation,  and  an  assurance  was  given  me  that 
he  had  taken  away  my  sins,  even  mine,  and  saved 
me  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death." 

From  that  time  Wesley^ s  ideal  was  not  changedy 
hut  his  conception  of  the  mode  of  attaining  it 
was,  because  he  himself  was  changed.  It  is  not 
quite  true  that  "he  was  saved  because  he  had 
found  his  work."  Rather  is  it  true  that  he 
found  his  work  and  did  it  with  a  power  and  fruit- 
age hitherto  undreamed  because  he  was  saved. 
Whether  or  not  we  agree  with  Wesley  himself  in 
looking  upon  that  inner  experience  as  his  actual 
conversion,  the  fact  remains  that  he  grounded 
all  that  he  was  and  did  in  it  and  it  alone.  And 
that  assurance  that  he  was  saved  changed  not 
his  message  but  its  meaning  and  content.  To 
the  very  last  he  insisted  that  every  man's  main 
business  in  life  is  to  make  sure  of  the  salvation 
of  his  own  soul.  To  the  last  he  looked  upon  the 
church  as  "a  body  of  men  compacted  together 
in  order,  first  to  save  each  his  own  soul."  But  his 
conception  of  that  salvation  broadened  and  deep- 
ened. It  no  longer  meant  getting  safely  to  heaven 
by  monastic  asceticism  while  the  world  went  to 
the  devil,  but  complete  cooperation  with  God  in 
his  task  of  saving  the  world.  Emerging  from  the 
influence  of  exaggerated  mysticism  and  Moravian 
quietism,   he   saw   and   taught   that   the   highest 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    127 

interests  of  the  individual  are  subserved  not  by 
separation  from,  but  by  complete  identification 
with,  the  highest  interests  of  the  race,  and  that 
supreme  concern  for  and  attention  to  the  salva- 
tion of  one's  own  soul  results  in  and  finally  com- 
prehends supreme  concern  for  and  striving  after 
the  salvation  of  mankind.  To  use  his  own  words : 
"This  old  religion  is  no  other  than  love,  the  love 
of  God  and  of  all  mankind;  the  loving  God  with 
aU  our  heart  and  soul  and  strength,  as  having 
first  loved  us — as  the  foundation  of  all  the  good 
we  have  received  and  of  all  we  ever  hope  to  enjoy, 
and  the  loving  every  soul  which  God  hath  made, 
every  man  on  earth  as  our  own  soul."  If  any 
man  in  this  age  of  "an  awakened  social  conscious- 
ness" has  given  utterance  to  a  bigger,  broader, 
more  comprehensive  interpretation  of  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  I  do  not  happen  to  have  heard 
of  it.  Furthermore,  it  is  only  fair  to  add  that 
Wesley  not  only  preached  such  a  practical  gos- 
pel, but  administered  his  societies  on  that  basis. 
"The  virtues  that  make  good  citizens  and  good 
neighbors  were  the  indispensable  conditions  of 
membership  in  those  societies."  Omitting  all 
reference  to  the  highly  satirized  clause  concerning 
amusements,  the  fact  remains  that  a  rigid  appli- 
cation to  the  modern  church  of  Wesley's  ethical 
test  as  to  the  reality  of  a  man's  religion  would 
result  in  an  ecclesiastical  exodus  beside  which  the 


128    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

departure  of  the  children  of  Israel  from  Egypt 
would  shrivel  to  the  proportions  of  a  mere  inci- 
dent. 

In  fact,  Edwards  and  Wesley  both  preached 
what  seems  like  an  individualistic  and  self-cen- 
tered gospel  because  of  the  unalterable  cfonviction 
that  that  was  the  only  gospel  for  a  world  whose 
root  problem  was  sin.  The  tragedy  in  the  case 
of  Edwards  was  not  that  his  dominating  ideal 
was  selfish,  but  that  it  was  freighted  with  a  hide- 
ous and  impossible  theology.  "The  incongruities, 
the  absurdities,  even,  to  which  Edwards's  teach- 
ing gave  rise  were  not  altogether  inherent  in  his 
theory  (of  virtue),  but  sprang  from  its  associa- 
tion with  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  election  or 
predestination."  His  philosophy  may  be  summed 
up  in  his  own  correlated  postulates,  that  "he  who 
has  true  love  toward  God  will  be  more  disposed 
than  others  to  be  moved  with  benevolence  toward 
individuals,"  and  that  "the  love  for  individual 
or  particular  beings,  in  order  to  be  genuine,  must 
spring  out  of  the  love  toward  God  as  its  motive 
and  sanction."  With  that  theory  Wesley  was 
absolutely  in  agreement.  No  man  knew  the  middle 
and  lower-class  Britishers  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury better  than  he  did,  and  no  man  had  a  livelier 
interest  in  all  that  concerned  their  highest  good. 
The  injustice  of  the  landed  gentry,  the  corruption 
which  permeated  contemporary  politics,  the  high 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    129 

cost  of  living,  and  all  the  other  "social  questions" 
that  troubled  the  world  in  his  day  received  his 
serious  attention.  But  a  great  deal  that  is  made 
primary  to-day  was  made  secondary  by  him  be- 
cause he  was  convinced  that  the  only  way  to  bring 
those  reforms  to  pass  was  to  get  individual  men 
soundly  converted,  and  that  the  only  way  to  get 
hardened  sinners  and  smug  hypocrites  converted 
was  not  by  an  altruistic  appeal,  but  by  a  solemn 
summons  to  get  right  with  God.  "The  supreme 
concern  of  Jesus  throughout  his  ministry  was  not 
the  reorganization  of  human  society,  but  the  dis- 
closure to  the  human  soul  of  its  relation  to  God." 
In  that  Wesley  was  content  to  walk  in  the  foot- 
steps of  the  Christ.  And,  like  the  Christ  again, 
his  mode  of  getting  that  done  was  not  by  exhort- 
ing men  to  go  out  and  do  things  for  their  fellow 
men,  but  by  entreating  them  to  repent  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  might  save  them  from  their  sins. 

At  the  close  of  his  remarkable  and  remarkably 
discriminating  Life  of  Wesley,  Professor  Caleb  T. 
Winchester  says :  "Wesley  had  little  confidence  in 
any  other  means  to  uplift  and  direct  mankind, 
apart  from  this  force  of  personal  religion.  .  .  . 
He  was  no  believer  in  salvation  by  education  and 
culture,  by  economic  and  social  reform.  .  .  .  He 
did  assert  most  positively — as  the  Master  did — 
that  a  genuine  religious  life  must  be  known  by  its 
fruit  in  outward  conduct,  and  would  admit  no 


130    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

man  to  be  a  good  Christian  who  was  not  also  a 
good  citizen.  But  he  was  convinced  that  the  truly 
righteous  life,  the  life  that  realizes  the  best  possi- 
bilities of  human  nature,  must  spring  from  that 
devout  love  to  God  which  directs  and  controls 
all  a  man's  desires,  and  he  knew  that  such  a  life 
is  inspired  and  nurtured  by  influences  supernatu- 
ral and  divine.  Philanthropist,  social  reformer, 
he  was  first  of  aU  and  always  the  preacher  of 
personal  religion." 

In  that  keen  analysis  of  Wesley's  philosophy 
and  message  it  seems  to  me  that  Professor  Win- 
chester has  made  perfectly  clear,  once  and  for- 
ever, what  those  religious  leaders  of  yesterday 
really  meant  by  their  so-called  selfish  and  self- 
centered  ideal. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL  AND 
THE  MODERN  CHURCH 


n 


The  one  proof  of  a  divine  sanction  upon  his  work  he  [Wes- 
ley] found  in  that  absolute  and  often  sudden  change  of  tem- 
per which  turned  thousands  of  those  to  whom  he  preached 
from  vice  to  virtue,  from  a  life  of  sin  to  a  life  of  righteousness. 
This,  call  it  conversion,  the  new  birth,  or  what  you  will,  was 
an  indisputable  fact. — Caleb  T.  Winchester. 

To  say  that  the  new  evangelism  is  to  be  ethical  and  by  that 
to  seem  to  criticize  the  old,  is  to  prove  a  misunderstanding 
of  the  old,  and  also  a  misunderstanding  of  the  deepest  neces- 
sity of  the  times  in  which  we  live  and  serve.  When  a  man 
tells  me  the  next  revival  will  be  ethical,  does  he  mean  to  say 
that  the  last  was  not?  If  the  great  movements  under  Wes- 
ley, Whitefield,  Finney,  Moody  were  not  ethical,  what  were 
they?  They  were  movements  that  took  hold  of  vast  masses 
of  men,  and  moved  them  out  of  back  streets  into  front  ones, 
and  if  that  was  not  ethical,  surely  nothing  can  be  so.  Begin- 
ning with  the  regeneration  of  the  man,  they  changed  his  en- 
vironment, and  made  him  a  citizen  of  whom  any  city  might 
have  been  proud.  That  is  the  true  ethical  note. — G.  Camp- 
bell Morgan. 

Your  predecessors,  the  Puritan  pastors  of  New  England, 
were  strong  in  their  sense  of  the  new  social  order  which  was 
to  come  as  the  earthly  realization  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
They  dreamed  of  a  genuine  theocracy,  a  civil  order  in  which 
the  reign  of  the  Divine  Spirit  would  be  complete.  However 
imperfect,  and  even  clumsy,  modern  criticism  may  deem  some 
of  their  attempts  to  establish  their  social  ideals,  the  real  con- 
tent of  those  ideals,  the  brave  conception  of  an  associated  life 
which  should  embody  and  express  the  will  and  purpose  of 
God  for  men,  was  possessed  of  high  and  lasting  value.  And 
it  will  add  a  hundredfold  to  your  own  usefulness  as  pastors, 
if  you  too  may,  in  the  language  of  our  day,  hold  aloft  ideals 
which  shall  be  equally  commanding,  and  labor  for  their 
realization  with  the  same  splendid  zeal. — Dean  Charles  R. 
Brown. 

Here  [in  Mark  1:14-20]  we  have  the  beginning  of  organized 
Christianity.  This  is  the  germinal  cell  of  that  vast  social 
movement  of  which  foreign  missions,  the  establishment  of 
the  American  republic,  and  the  modern  labor  movement  are 
products.  It  began  with  repentance,  faith,  and  self-sacrificing 
action,  and  it  will  always  have  to  advance  by  the  same  means. 
— Walter  Rauschenbusch. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL  AND 
THE  MODERN  CHURCH 


II 


The  final  and  crucial  question  about  anything 
in  the  realm  of  religious  idealism  is,  How  does  it 
work?  In  other  words,  as  Jesus  stated  so  ex- 
plicitly, and  as  Jonathan  Edwards  contended  in 
his  Treatise  on  Religious  Affections,  it  is  just 
as  true  of  a  man's  religion  as  it  is  of  anything 
else  that  by  its  fruits  ye  shall  know  it.  Concern- 
ing an  individual's  ideal  or  profession,  therefore, 
we  need  to  inquire.  What  was  its  effect  upon  him? 
What  kind  of  a  man  did  it  make  him?  And  con- 
cerning a  definite  religious  movement  based  upon 
a  clearly  defined  interpretation  of  religion,  we 
ought  to  inquire,  what  was  its  effect  upon  society? 
As  Coe  puts  it,  "The  ultimate  test  of  religious 
values  is  nothing  psychological,  nothing  definable 
in  terms  of  how  it  happens,  but  something  ethical, 
definable  only  in  terms  of  what  is  attained." 

The  one  prerequisite  of  a  conclusion  even  on 
that  basis,  however,  is  that  the  judgment  be  just. 
133 


134    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

William  James  says  that  "we  must  not  confound 
the  essentials  of  saintliness,  which  are  the  general 
passions  (felicity,  purity,  charity,  patience,  self- 
serenity),  with  its  accidentals,  which  are  the 
special  determinations  of  these  passions  at  any 
historical  moment."  It  is  not  fair  to  test  the 
eighteenth-century  application  of  an  ideal  by 
twentieth-century  social  standards.  Neither  is 
it  fair  to  judge  the  social  value  of  a  religious 
movement  by  its  aberrations  and  excesses. 

Of  the  fruit  of  the  "selfish  and  self-centered 
gospel"  in  the  lives  of  its  protagonists,  Edwards 
and  Wesley,  very  little  need  be  said.  In  majestic 
moral  grandeur  and  almost  flawless  spiritual  ex- 
cellence, both  men  tower  not  only  above  their 
contemporaries,  but  even  above  the  vast  majority 
of  the  choicest  spirits  of  all  time.  There  is  little 
wonder  that,  years  ago,  a  British  author  wrote 
in  the  Westminster  Review,  "From  the  days  of 
Plato  there  has  been  no  life  of  more  simple  and 
imposing  grandeur  than  that  of  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards." And  there  is  just  as  little  wonder  that 
Professor  Winchester  concludes  his  Life  of  Wes- 
ley with  the  exquisite  and  thoroughly  merited 
tribute,  "It  were  idle  to  ask  whether  he  were  the 
greatest  man  of  his  century.  That  century  was 
rich  in  names  the  world  calls  great.  .  .  .  But  run 
over  the  whole  brilliant  list,  and  where  among 
them  all  is  the  man  whose  motives  were  so  pure, 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    135 

whose  life  was  so  unselfish,  whose  character  was 
so  spotless?" 

There  is  the  paradox,  the  ethical  mystery  of 
it  all.  Professor  Winchester,  in  hi^  Life  of  Wes- 
ley, and  A.  V.  G.  Allen,  in  his  Life  of  Edwards, 
make  it  clear  beyond  peradventure  that  the  out- 
standing characteristic  of  these  exponents  of  "an 
individualistic  and  self-centered  gospel"  was  a 
superb  and  noble  unselfishness.  In  the  whole 
spirit  and  conduct  of  their  lives,  they  were  hemi- 
spheres away  from  the  self-regarding  philosophy 
of  Herbert  Spencer.  Edwards  was  a  mystic,  but 
the  self-absorbed  raptures  of  unrestrained  mys- 
ticism had  no  more  part  in  him  that  did  the  crass 
stupidities  of  prudentialism.  He  was  an  ascetic, 
from  his  young  manhood  until  the  day  he  died, 
but  the  perverted  Christianity  of  monastic  as- 
ceticism, which  systematized  self-inflicted  suffer- 
ings for  the  sake  of  "merit,"  never  found  lodg- 
ment in  his  great  soul.  That  which  the  young 
manhood  of  the  world  did  a  short  time  ago  for  a 
limited  period  of  time,  he  did  for  a  life  time,  to  a 
greater  degree  and  for  as  exalted  a  motive.  Not 
only  because  of  what  is  said,  but  because  of  him 
who  says  it,  I  cannot  forbear  quoting  Allen  once 
more.  He  says  of  Edwards :  "He  too  is  an  ascetic 
at  heart ;  but  his  asceticism,  however  it  may  have 
erred,  is  of  a  higher  type  than  the  ancient  or 
mediaeval  forms.     It  is  of  the  heroic  cast  which 


136    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

orders  life  with  reference  to  the  highest  end.  If 
he  abstains  from  amusements,  from  excess  of 
food,  from  many  hours  spent  in  sleep,  it  is  not 
because  he  believes  such  abstinence  scores  so  much 
to  his  merit,  but  because  he  has  a  work  to  do, 
and,  like  his  Master,  is  sorely  straitened  until 
it  be  accomplished." 

Even  during  his  life  time,  Wesley's  utter  sub- 
ordination of  all  personal  comfort  and  gain  to 
the  supreme  end  of  cooperating  with  God  in  get- 
ting men  saved  not  only  broke  down  all  opposition 
but  compelled  the  unwilling  admiration  of  his 
critics.  Samuel  Johnson  complained  because 
Wesley  was  so  busy  that  he  made  it  uncomfort- 
able for  "one  who  likes  to  fold  his  legs  and  have 
his  talk  out,  as  I  do,"  and  also  said  frankly  to 
Boswell,  that  "whatever  might  be  thought  of 
some  Methodist  preachers,  he  could  scarcely 
doubt  the  sincerity  of  that  man  who  traveled  nine 
hundred  miles  in  a  month,  and  preached  twelve 
times  a  week ;  for  no  adequate  reward,  merely 
temporal,  could  be  given  for  such  indefatigable 
labor."  It  was  not  so  much  what  Wesley  did, 
however,  as  what  he  did  without,  that  gave  to  his 
unselfishness  its  superlative  quality.  A  man  who 
really  loved  leisure,  and  more  than  once  in  his 
Journal  acknowledged  its  almost  resistless  appeal, 
he  gave  up,  for  fifty-four  years,  everything  that 
might  be  called  by  that  name,  counting  that  time 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    137 

lost  which  was  not  spent  either  in  benevolent  ac- 
tivity or  communion  with  God.  A  man  of  innate 
refinement,  he  renounced  the  cloistered  intim.acies 
of  intellectual  centers  that  he  might  live  with  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  of  sin-sodden  Britain. 
And  a  man  of  choice  tastes,  and,  for  many  years, 
of  income  sufficient  to  gratify  them,  he  yet  chose 
to  live  on  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year, 
using  all  the  rest  to  the  glory  of  God  and  for  the 
good  of  mankind.  As  he,  himself,  quaintly  put 
it,  when  asked  by  the  excise  officer  for  a  report 
on  his  "plate":  "Sirs,  I  have  two  silver  spoons 
here  in  London,  and  two  in  Bristol.  This  is  all 
I  have  at  present,  and  I  shall  not  buy  any  more 
while  so  many  around  me  want  bread." 

Of  course  all  that  would  mean  nothing  to  Ran- 
dolph Bourne,  for  he  derides  personal  virtue  as 
a  means  of  world  betterment.  But  it  does  mean 
much  to  those  who  believe,  with  Peabody,  that 
"the  secret  of  national  welfare  is  in  personal 
morality,"  or,  with  Saint  James,  that  "Pure  reli- 
gion and  undefiled  before  God  and  the  Father  is 
this.  To  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their 
affliction,  and  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from 
the  world."  And,  whether  or  not  it  can  be  said  of 
the  complacent  and  prosperous  church  of  to-day, 
surely  it  cannot  be  said,  after  reading  the  lives 
of  these  men — and  of  multitudes  more  who  made 
their  souls'  salvation  the  first  business  of  their 


138    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

lives — "against  the  background  of  the  millions  of 
self-forgetful  men  who  fought  in  France,  how 
dark  this  record  looks."  Rather  must  we  say 
of  each  of  these,  as  Edwards  said  of  David 
Brainerd,  "His  religion  was  not  selfish  and 
mercenary;  .  .  .his  joy  was  joy  in  God  and 
not  in  himself."  In  other  words,  the  incontro- 
vertible testimony  of  history  is  to  the  effect  that 
the  man  who  is  normally  and  healthily  concerned 
about  the  salvation  of  his  own  soul,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  everything  else,  will  ultimately  be  more 
concerned  for  the  complete  salvation  of  the  race 
and  do  more  for  the  race  than  the  man  who  looks 
upon  all  concern  about  one's  soul  as  a  selfish 
business. 

The  total  social  value  of  the  lives,  teachings, 
and  work  of  these  two  apostles  of  the  individual- 
istic gospel  cannot,  of  course,  be  computed.  It 
is  true  in  the  estimate  of  spiritual  movements  as 
it  is  in  the  estimate  of  human  character,  that 
"man  looketh  upon  the  outward  appearance." 
Only  the  Infinite  Wisdom  knows  the  hidden 
streams  of  influence  and  their  final  effect  upon 
human  conditions.  The  judgment  of  the  unbiased 
and  thoroughly  informed,  however,  can  be  trusted, 
here  as  elsewhere,  to  give  us  an  approximately 
accurate  estimate  of  values.  Again,  let  it  be 
said  that,  because  of  its  intolerable  theology, 
Edwards's  work  was  doomed  to   certain  limita- 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    139 

tions.  His  deterministic  philosophy  and  the  fact 
that  his  own  ministerial  work  was  severely  local 
led  to  perversions  and  excesses  in  the  great 
awakening.  Even  at  that,  however,  there  is  much 
to  be  said.  After  making  allowances  for  all  that 
and  for  the  fundamental  defect  of  "severing  the 
spiritual  from  the  world  of  human  interests  and 
realities,"  the  fact  remains  that  in  its  total  effect 
his  life  and  his  gospel  have  constituted  "an  effec- 
tive ferment  of  goodness,  a  slow  transmuter  of 
the  earthly  into  the  more  heavenly  order."  His 
protest  against  the  Half-Way  Covenant,  made 
at  such  cost  to  himself,  purified  the  church  for  a 
century  after  he  had  ceased  from  his  labors.  At 
a  time  when  the  whole  tendency  in  morals  and 
religion  was  toward  laxity,  he  was  "destined  by 
Providence  to  be  its  chosen  agent  in  arresting 
the  gradual  drift  of  religious  life  to  yet  lower 
levels."  When  his  work  was  done  the  separation 
between  church  and  state  in  New  England  was 
absolutely  assured.  Mrs.  Edwards  was  far  from 
being  the  only  one  who  came  to  realize  "in  an 
unusual  and  very  lively  manner,  how  great  a  part 
of  Christianity  lies  in  the  performance  of  our 
social  and  relative  duties  to  one  another."  It 
is  of  more  than  passing  significance  that  Dr. 
Hopkins,  Edwards's  friend  and  pupil,  had  more 
than  anybody  else  to  do  with  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  New  England.     And  Allen  goes  so  far 


140    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

as  to  say:  "Without  such  a  preliminary  move- 
ment as  the  Great  Awakening,  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
sentiment  of  humanity  which  has  been  such  a 
powerful  factor  in  modern  civilization  could  have 
made  its  successful  record.  The  hardness  and 
cruelty  of  the  last  century  [the  eighteenth],  the 
want  of  sympathy  with  human  suffering,  the  in- 
justice which  had  long  reigned  undisturbed,  were 
gradually  overcome  when  men  ceased  to  remain 
strangers  to  their  inmost  selves."  Thus  does  the 
biographer  of  Edwards  and  Brooks  bear  witness 
to  the  social  value,  not  only  of  the  religious 
revival  in  which  Edwards  was  the  greatest  human 
factor,  but  also  of  the  subjective  element  in  that 
revival. 

John  Wesley  was  a  practical  mystic  and  a 
Christian  statesman  of  the  first  order.  The  clear- 
ness of  his  vision  and  the  breadth  of  his  sympa- 
thies were  manifested  in  the  many-sidedness  of 
his  work.  Long  before  institutional  churches 
were  ever  heard  of  or  social  service  had  become 
a  fad  he  effected  a  religious  organization  whose 
ramifications  extended  into  almost  every  depart- 
ment of  human  life.  He  founded  schools  for  poor 
children,  night  schools  for  unlettered  w^orking 
folks,  and  nourished  the  unpopular  cause  of 
popular  education;  the  orphanage  at  Newcastle 
was  known  throughout  the  empire;  and  in  con- 
nection  with   the   London    Society    were    a    dis- 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    141 

pensary,  a  loan  office,  a  book  store  which  fur- 
nished to  the  poor  good  literature  at  low  cost, 
and  an  employment  bureau. 

With  his  keen  interest  in  all  that  concerned 
human  welfare,  his  unwearied  insistence  upon  the 
ethical  test  of  every  man's  religion,  and  his  ex- 
traordinary genius  as  an  executive,  combined  with 
his  sane  emphasis  upon  religion  as  an  inner  ex- 
perience, there  is  little  wonder  that  Wesley's  work 
affected  the  whole  life  of  the  race.  Indeed,  the 
judgment  of  historians  as  to  the  social  value  of 
that  work  seems  to  be  unanimous.  A  study  of 
the  lives  of  whole  multitudes  who  were  changed 
by  his  individualistic  gospel  leads  inevitably  to 
James's  conclusion  that  "the  highest  flights  of 
charity,  devotion,  trust,  patience,  bravery,  to 
which  the  wings  of  human  nature  have  spread 
themselves,  have  been  flown  for  religious  ideals." 
And  if  the  radical  social  idealist,  the  man  who 
thinks  of  "social  results"  in  terms  of  economic 
and  political  reform,  objects  that  this  is  not 
enough,  the  answer  is  that  this  was  not  all.  Bir- 
rell  says  that  "no  other  man  did  such  a  life's 
work  for  England."  Lecky  specifies  one  phase 
of  that  work  when  he  affirms  that  "Wesley  was 
one  of  the  chief  forces  that  saved  England  from 
a  revolution  such  as  France  knew."  F.  M.  Daven- 
port calls  attention  to  the  correlated  result  in 
his  declaration  that  Wesley's  greatest  service  was 


142    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

not  rendered  to  the  church  at  all,  but  to  the 
cause  of  democracy.  And  Green,  in  his  Short 
History  of  the  English  People,  frankly  claims 
that  the  noblest  result  of  the  Wesleyan  movement 
was  "the  steady  attempt,  which  has  never  ceased 
from  that  day  to  this,  to  remedy  the  guilt,  the 
ignorance,  the  physical  suffering,  the  social 
degradation  of  the  profligate  and  the  poor."  But 
it  seems  to  me  that  Dr.  J.  H.  Jowett,  with  the 
mental  and  spiritual  acumen  which  characterizes 
all  his  utterances,  puts  the  whole  thing  into  start- 
lingly  concrete  form  in  his  memorable  words: 
"The  revival  of  personal  religion  under  the  Wes- 
leys  gave  rise  to  the  four  great  philanthropic 
movements  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  cen- 
turies :  the  anti-slavery  movement,  led  by  Wilber- 
force;  the  prison-reform  movement,  led  by  John 
Howard;  the  Sunday  school  movement,  initiated 
by  Robert  Raikes;  and  the  foreign  missionary 
movement,  led  by  William  Carey."  If  any  modern 
apostle  has  a  greater  record  to  his  credit,  I  would 
like  to  know  it. 

The  significance  of  all  this  is  vastly  enhanced, 
when  it  is  remembered  that  it  was  the  fruitage 
of  a  lifework  whose  dominant  purpose  was  not 
social  betterment  but  the  salvation  of  individual 
souls,  and  whose  insistent  appeal  was  the  selfish 
appeal  now  so  hotly  under  fire.  To  the  last  he 
called  himself  "a  brand  plucked  from  the  burn- 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    143 

ing."  To  the  last  he  devoted  the  vast  resources 
of  his  genius,  not  to  establishing  "social  justice," 
but  to  "spreading  scriptural  holiness  throughout 
the  land."  He  would  have  uttered  a  hearty 
"amen"  to  Phillips  Brooks's  sage  prophecy  that 
"this  earth  will  be  a  hell  when  all  men  go  about 
clamoring  for  their  rights."  (And,  by  the  way, 
isn't  the  wisdom  of  that  statement  finding  tragic 
justification  in  the  trend  of  events  since  the  close 
of  the  war.f^)  To  all  the  modern  attempts  to 
establish  religion  by  altruistic  appeal,  and  in  the 
face  of  every  claim  that  the  old  form  of  religion 
is  "such  a  selfish  thing,"  I  believe  he  would  have 
made  calm  answer,  in  words  closely  akin  to  those 
of  Lyman  Abbott,  that  "love  to  God  and  service 
of  man  are  not  the  foundations  of  religion.  They 
are  the  fruit  of  religion.  .  .  .  Christianity  has, 
through  the  ages,  been  enabling  men  to  love  God 
and  serve  their  fellow  men,  not  by  presenting 
them  principles  to  contemplate,  but  by  imparting 
to  them  power  through  faith  in  a  Person."  And 
to  bring  about  that  miracle  of  grace,  which  made 
helpful  wives  out  of  common  scolds,  noble  men 
out  of  sodden  brutes,  and  good  citizens  out  of 
lawbreakers  of  long  standing,  he  had  no  qualms 
about  telling  them  that  they  never  could  amount 
to  anything  in  this  world  or  the  next  until  they 
did,  before  everything  else,  flee  from  the  wrath 
to  come  and  make  absolutely  sure  of  the  salvation 


144    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

of  their  souls.  He  preached  that  gospel  because 
it  secured  the  results.  And  he  kept  on  preaching 
it,  and  making  everything  else  subsidiary  to  it, 
because  he  saw  it  changing  multitudes  of  indi- 
viduals and  slowly  leavening  the  whole  social 
order.  Not  long  before  his  death,  when  the  dis- 
solution of  body  and  soul  had  already  begun,  and 
the  Unseen  World  must  have  seemed  even  nearer 
than  ever  before,  he  spoke  for  the  last  time,  and 
his  message  was,  "Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may 
be  found :  call  ye  upon  him  while  he  is  near." 

In  his  book  The  Social  Principles  of  Jesus, 
Walter  Rauschenbusch  makes  the  same  criticism 
upon  the  Christianity  of  yesterday  as  do  so  many 
others.  He  says:  "The  contribution  made  by 
Christianity  to  the  working  efficiency  and  the 
constructive  social  abilities  of  humanity  in  the 
past  has  been  mainly  indirect.  The  main  aim 
set  before  Christians  was  to  save  their  souls  from 
eternal  woe,  to  have  communion  with  God  now 
and  hereafter,  and  to  live  God-fearing  lives.  It 
was  individualistic  religion,  concentrated  on  the 
life  to  come.  Its  social  effectiveness  was  largely 
a  by-product.  What,  now,  would  have  been  the 
result  if  Christianity  had  placed  an  equally 
strong  emphasis  on  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  ideal 
social  order  .f^" 

The  late  apostle  of  a  thoroughly  socialized 
Christianity    raises    a    fair   question,    one    which 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    145 

no  sincere  man  would  seek  to  avoid.  Dr.  Dale 
made  the  same  suggestion  of  a  lack  of  complete 
social  outlook  in  the  Wesleyan  revival.  Let  us 
grant  it.  Wesley  was  a  political  conservative, 
and  distinctively  a  man  of  his  time  in  his  atti- 
tude toward  economic  questions.  But  no  man 
can  demonstrate  beyond  peradventure  that  our 
modern  principles  of  political  and  industrial 
democracy  could  have  been  injected  into  his  work 
without  irretrievable  disaster  accompanying  it. 
No  thorough  student  of  the  Scriptures  and 
Christian  history  can  deny  that  the  social  effec- 
tiveness of  Christianity  always  has  been  a  by- 
product, from  the  first  century  until  the  present. 
And  while  every  sincere  man  must  believe  pro- 
foundly in  the  modern  emphasis  of  the  social 
aspects  of  the  gospel,  time  alone  will  show  whether 
or  not  the  new  method  of  Kingdom  building  is 
really  more  effective  than  the  old.  If  Wesley 
erred,  he  erred  on  the  right  side.  If  the  vast 
movement  under  his  superb  leadership  lacked  any- 
thing, it  lacked  that  which  it  could  best  spare. 
If  it  is  true,  as  Rauschenbusch  says,  that  "every 
advance  toward  the  kingdom  of  God,  that  is, 
toward  the  true  social  order,  involves  a  raising  of 
the  ethical  standards  accepted  by  society,"  it  still 
holds  good  that  the  raising  up  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Christ-transformed,  God-fearing 
men,  as  was  done  in  the  Wesleyan  Revival,  con- 


146    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

tributes  more  than  anything  else  toward  that  de- 
sired end. 

When  the  last  argument  has  been  presented 
and  the  last  atom  of  data  used,  I  cannot  help 
thinking  of  the  incident  related  by  Dr.  Gunsaulus, 
in  his  address  on  Emma  Willard.  He  says  that, 
on  a  raw  autumn  day,  a  young  English  nobleman 
was  riding  about  the  country.  Feeling  chilled 
after  a  while,  he  rode  into  a  village  and  spent 
some  time  looking  for  a  public  house.  Angered 
at  his  failure  to  find  one,  he  finally  accosted  an 
old  man  with  the  snarling  question, 

"  'Why  is  it  that  a  man  can't  get  a  drink  of 
liquor  in  this  miserable  place  when  he  wants  one.^" 

"And  the  old  man  respectfully  removed  his  hat 
and  said: 

"  'Because,  sir,  a  man  named  John  Wesley 
passed  this  way  about  a  hundred  years  ago.'  " 

Superb,  I  say.  And  when  the  last  critic  of  that 
"individualistic  and  self-centered  gospel,"  that 
gospel  which  does  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  the 
salvation  of  one's  own  soul  as  the  supreme  thing 
in  life,  has  had  his  say,  I  am  content  to  hark  back 
to  those  honest  words  of  Brierley's,  incorporated 
in  his  last  volume  of  essays :  "If  you  put  'hell  and 
damnation'  for  all  that  system  of  things  which 
punishes  guilt  and  the  abandonment  of  the  good, 
are  the  words  too  strong  ?  It  is  hell  and  damna- 
tion,  and   those   early   evangelicals   knew   it  and 


THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL    147 

said  it.  And  the  medicine  gripped  and  worlced. 
.  .  .  We  say  that  this  movement,  purely  reli- 
gious, purely  spiritual,  was,  within  the  range  of 
its  influence,  the  best  solution  of  the  social  ques- 
tion that  has  yet  been  offered.  ...  If  there  is 
any  other  way  of  creating  a  true  social  life,  we 
should  be  glad  to  hear  of  it.  It  has  not  appeared 
so  far." 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  BASIC  WEAKNESS  OF  THE  MODERN 
CHURCH 


A  church  whose  members  recite  formularies  that  have  no 
relation  to  their  active  life  is  rotting  at  the  core. — J.  Brierley. 

One  of  the  most  terrible  signs  of  how  the  spirit  of  sordidness 
has  filled  the  world  is  the  lamentable  extent  to  which  it  has 
pervaded  the  church.  The  church  is  constantly  found  trust- 
ing in  second  causes  as  if  she  knew  of  no  first  cause.  She 
elaborates  her  machineries  as  if  the  power  lay  in  them.  She 
goes,  cap  in  hand,  to  rich  men's  doors,  and  flatters  them  and 
dares  not  tell  them  of  their  sins  because  she  wants  their  money. 
She  lets  her  officers  conduct  her  affairs  with  all  the  arts  of  a 
transaction  on  the  street  or  an  intrigue  in  politics,  or  only 
shows  her  difference  of  standards  and  freedom  from  respon- 
sibility by  some  advantage  taken  which  not  even  the  con- 
science of  the  exchange  or  of  the  caucus  would  allow.  .  .  . 
You  must  cast  all  that  out  of  the  church  or  you  will  make  its 
pulpit  perfectly  powerless  to  speak  of  God  to  our  wealth- 
ridden  and  pleasure-loving  time.  You  must  show  first  that 
his  church  believes  in  him  and  is  satisfied  in  him,  or  you  will 
cry  in  vain  to  men  to  come  to  him. — Phillips  Brooks. 

As  a  religion,  Christianity  stands  out  from  other  faiths  by 
its  fearless  exposition  of  conversion:  of  the  possible  change  of 
a  man's  inner  forces  by  union  with  another  force.  Its  pro- 
gram is  nothing  less  than  that  of  the  development  of  a  new 
humanity;  of  a  spiritual  chemistry  which  changes  our  primi- 
tive elements  by  a  mystical  contact;  the  emergence  from  the 
old  Adam  of  "a  new  creature."  In  times  of  religious  deca- 
dence, the  doctrine  is  apt  to  be  obscured;  kept  in  the  back- 
ground as  though  it  were  a  vulgarity,  something  to  be  ashamed 
of.  A  virile  church  will  keep  it  at  the  forefront,  for  it  is  a  true 
doctrine  and  a  vital.  It  can  be  stated  in  scientific  terms. 
It  has  all  analogy  on  its  side.  The  church  of  the  future  will 
build  itself  on  the  chemistry  of  souls. — J.  Brierley. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  BASIC  WEAKNESS  OF  THE  MODERN 
CHURCH 

That  the  modern  church  has  ceased  to  appeal 
to  a  multitude  of  red-blooded,  sincere  men  is  one 
of  the  incontrovertible  facts  of  modern  life,  and 
that  this  gradual  loss  of  primacy  in  practical 
affairs  has  been  caused  by  a  spirit  of  selfish 
provincialism  is  as  plain  as  a  pike  staff.  In  the 
striking  words  of  Silvester  Home,  "The  modern 
church  is  so  busy  saving  itself  and  paying  its 
way  that  it  has  neither  the  energy  nor  the  vision 
nor  the  daring  to  put  the  gospel  to  the  proof." 
And  let  it  be  said,  in  all  frankness,  that  those 
words  were  wrung  from  the  lips  of  that  superb 
man  of  God  after  he  had  been  compelled  to  drive 
a  number  of  obstreperous  standpatters  out  of 
Whitefield's  in  order  to  secure  the  privilege  of 
transforming  that  moribund  institution  into  a 
church  militant  and  of  proclaiming  from  its  pul- 
pit "the  message  of  Christianity  ...  to  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  people,  in  terms  of  modern 
thought  and  in  application  to  the  whole  life  of 
the  community." 

151 


162    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

That  this  failure  of  the  modern  church  to 
function  in  our  complex  social  order  is  due  to  the 
persistent  preaching  of  an  individualistic  and 
self-centered  gospel  is  by  no  means  so  clear.  With 
all  due  regard  to  the  stricture  of  the  "English 
officer"  whose  criticism  has  been  widely  quoted, 
and  granting  the  possibility  of  an  unfortunate 
experience  on  his  part,  I  seriously  doubt  the 
existence  of  many  pulpits  where  a  Christianity 
is  preached  that  "simply  threatens  sinners  with 
hell  and  promises  comfort  to  the  good."  It  is  a 
well-known  fact  that  sermons  on  hell,  heaven,  and 
the  Judgment  have  become  so  rare  that  a  real 
old-fashioned  pronouncement  on  those  solemn 
themes  in  any  of  our  great  city  churches  would 
create  a  veritable  sensation.  As  the  assistant  in 
one  of  the  largest  Presbyterian  churches  in  the 
United  States  put  it  not  long  ago,  "The  preacher 
who  threatens  his  hearers  with  hell  in  this  age 
stands  a  fine  chance  of  being  told  to  go  there 
himself."  Indeed,  by  no  means  the  least  element 
in  Billy  Sunday's  popularity  with  all  classes  is 
his  vehement  visualizing  of  the  devil  and  consign- 
ment of  the  unrepentant  to  perdition.  Such 
utterances  come  with  the  shock  and  compelling 
attractiveness  of  a  decided  novelty.  In  another 
chapter  I  quoted  Dr.  Tuttle's  statement  that 
while  "Probably  all  our  preachers  still  retain 
their  belief  in  the  dreadful  consequences  of  un- 


MODERN  CHURCH  153 

repented  sin  continuing  beyond  the  grave,  .  .  . 
most  of  them  have  laid  it  away  in  the  attic  of 
their  intellect,  an  antiquated  memory  of  the  older 
times,  to  be  brought  out  occasionally  for  exhi- 
bition." The  significant  thing  about  that  state- 
ment is  that  it  can  be  made,  with  equal  accuracy, 
of  the  pulpits  of  all  the  evangelical  communions. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  for  doubting 
that  the  God  of  whom  H.  G.  Wells  was  taught 
in  his  boyhood  was  so  repellent  as  to  drive  that 
brilliant  man  to  the  other  extreme.  The  whole 
race  has  come  to  feel  the  need  of  a  Supreme  Being 
of  a  different  temperament  and  larger  propor- 
tions from  the  one  worshiped  by  many  of  the 
fathers.  And  yet,  foregoing  the  temptation  to 
discuss  the  relative  merits  of  H.  G.  Wells's  God 
and  John  Wesley's,  I  am  led  to  really  wonder 
in  how  many  important  pulpits  at  the  present  time 
God  is  actually  pictured  as  "a  gigantic  police- 
man, clubbing  those  who  break  his  traffic  regula- 
tions and  feeding  with  goodies  from  his  ample 
pockets  those  who  mind  his  word."  If  my  read- 
ing and  observation  have  not  absolutely  misled 
me,  the  general  impression  made  by  modern 
preaching  upon  the  common  man  is  that  God  is 
a  sort  of  a  good-natured,  indulgent  Father,  whose 
unexacting  kindliness  assures  everybody  of  salva- 
tion, whether  they  take  the  trouble  to  repent  of 
their  sins  and  put  on  the  form  of  righteousness 


154    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

or  not.  More  than  ten  years  ago  Dr.  Charles  H. 
Parkhurst  said:  "It  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
severest  type  of  Calvinism  that  God  could  be  just 
according  to  celestial  principles  and  still  damn 
a  man  who,  according  to  terrestrial  principles, 
did  not  deserve  to  be  damned.  And  it  is  also  a 
doctrine,  which,  although  pleasanter  and  much 
more  popular,  will  not  bear  much  closer  examina- 
tion, that  God  can  be  just  according  to  celestial 
principles  and  save  a  man  who,  according  to 
terrestrial  principles,  does  not  deserve  to  be 
saved."  During  the  intervening  years,  that 
second  doctrine  has  increased  in  popularity  until 
it  has  become  almost  a  racial  obsession.  In  other 
words,  God,  in  popular  thought,  is  still  the 
gigantic  policeman,  but  the  traffic  laws  have  been 
abrogated  and  all,  worthy  and  unworthy  alike, 
share  in  the  goodies  from  his  ample  pockets. 

I  have  the  profoundest  admiration  for  many 
of  the  good  men  who  are  pointing  out  the  faults 
of  the  church  to-day.  Everybody  wants  effective 
action.  But  is  it  really  true  that  "we  still  hear 
the  old  appeal  that  men  should  come  to  God  be- 
cause they  thereby  save  themselves  for  future 
bliss  in  a  golden  paradise" .''  Isn't  a  stricture 
on  the  modern  pulpit  for  that  kind  of  preaching 
simply  fighting  a  man  of  straw?  Is  it  not  true 
that,  in  practically  every  important  pulpit  on 
the  two  continents,  the  "golden  paradise"  busi- 


MODERN  CHURCH  155 

ness  has  been  taboo  for  twenty-five  years  or  more? 
In  fact,  is  it  not  true  that,  for  a  full  quarter  of 
a  century,  in  pulpit  utterance,  religious  litera- 
ture and  regular  congregational  singing,  the 
whole  matter  of  the  life  beyond  death  has  suffered 
an  almost  total  eclipse?  The  Glory  Song,  whose 
"shamelessly  un-Christian"  character  I  am  yet 
unable  to  see — although  I  never  sang  it  six  times 
— is  a  survival,  not  a  symptom.  The  new  Meth- 
odist Hymnal,  published  about  twenty  years  ago, 
shows  a  marked  decrease  in  the  number  of  hymns 
relating  to  the  future  life  and  a  marked  increase 
in  such  magnificent  modern  hymns  as  Dr.  North's 
"Where  cross  the  crowded  ways  of  life."  It  is 
a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the  man  in 
the  pulpit,  along  with  everybody  else,  has  shared 
in  that  "absorbing  interest  in  this  world,"  which 
constitutes  one  of  the  dominant  characteristics 
of  the  age  and  which  has  practically  shut  out  all 
serious  consideration  of  the  world  to  come.  And 
the  suggestion  that  the  modern  church  is  failing 
to  function  because  the  saints  who  make  up  its 
membership  are  selfishly  absorbed  in  making  sure 
of  the  salvation  of  their  own  souls  while  the  world 
takes  care  of  itself,  is  certainly  charged  with 
unconscious  humor.  The  decay  of  the  prayer 
meeting,  the  fact  that  it  is  far  easier  to  raise 
a  million  for  missions  than  it  is  to  get  a  dozen 
strong  men  on  their  knees,  crying,  "God  be  merci- 


156    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

ful  to  me  a  sinner,"  and  the  widespread  substitu- 
tion of  Goethe's  "religion  of  the  deed"  for  the 
inner  experience  emphasized  by  evangelical  Chris- 
tianity, all  point  to  the  well-known  fact  that  if 
there  is  one  thing  the  modern  layman  is  not  con- 
sumingly  absorbed  in  it  is  the  salvation  of  his 
soul;  and  far  from  being  intent  on  escaping  hell 
and  getting  to  heaven,  the  truth  is  that  he  isn't 
thinking  anything  about  either. 

In  one  of  his  two  great  books,  published  a  few 
years  ago.  Dr.  Peabody  said,  "This  separatism 
of  religion,  this  provincialism  of  the  saints,  is  not 
peculiar  to  contemporary  Christianity,  or,  indeed, 
characteristic  of  it."    Dr.  Peabody  was  right. 

It  is  easy  to  generalize  about  the  failure  of  the 
modern  pulpit  and  church.  It  is  not  so  easy  to 
bring  in  a  bill  of  particulars,  with  evidence  suffi- 
cient to  sustain  it.  In  the  last  analysis  every 
man's  judgment  will  be  based,  not  only  upon  the 
facts,  but  upon  his  personal  feelings  as  to  the 
value  of  those  facts.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
real  trend  of  the  modern  pulpit  and  church  was 
stated  by  William  James  in  his  lectures  on  "The 
Varieties  of  Religious  Experience."  He  said: 
"The  advance  of  liberalism,  so-called,  in  Chris- 
tianity, during  the  past  fifty  years  may  fairly 
be  called  a  victory  of  healthy  mindedness  within 
the  church  over  the  morbidness  with  which  the 
old  hell-fire  theology  was  more  harmoniously  re- 


MODERN  CHURCH  157 

lated.  We  have  now  whole  congregations  whose 
preachers,  far  from  magnifying  our  consciousness 
of  sin,  seem  devoted  rather  to  making  little  of  it. 
They  ignore,  or  even  deny,  eternal  punishment 
and  insist  on  the  dignity  rather  than  the  depravity 
of  man.  They  look  at  the  continual  preoccupa- 
tion of  the  old-fashioned  Christian  with  the  salva- 
tion of  his  soul  as  something  sickly  and  repre- 
hensible rather  than  admirable,  and  a  sanguine 
and  'muscular'  attitude,  which  to  our  forefathers 
would  have  seemed  purely  heathen,  has  become  an 
ideal  element  of  Christian  character." 

Those  words  were  spoken  in  1902.  During 
those  seventeen  intervening  years  that  conception 
of  Christianity  has  grown  and  spread  until  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  it  now  dominates  the 
church.  There  has  been  a  steady  and  steadily 
increasing  change  of  emphasis  in  the  religious 
world  from  Augustine's  idea  of  God  as  an  exact- 
ing Sovereign  to  Clement's  idea  of  God  as  a 
Father;  from  the  glories  and  horrors  of  the 
future  to  the  problems  and  duties  of  the  present; 
from  religion  as  personal  oneness  with  a  Divine 
Person  to  religion  as  the  performance  of  a  set 
of  duties;  from  the  subjective  elements  of  a  Chris- 
tian experience  to  its  objective  manifestations, 
and  especially  to  activity  as  the  normal  expres- 
sion of  faith;  from  the  power  of  righteousness 
to  flourish  in  and  triumph  over  the  most  hostile 


158    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

environment  to  the  necessity  of  a  favorable  en- 
vironment .for  the  growth  of  the  spirit ;  from  the 
salvation  of  the  individual  or  any  number  of  indi- 
viduals to  the  salvation  of  society  as  a  whole; 
and,  in  consequence  of  all  this,  from  personal 
character  to  social  righteousness  or  social  justice. 
To  the  beneficent  results  of  those  changed 
accents  no  sincere  man  can  be  blind  and  for  its 
full  fruitage  of  good  every  true  man  must  be 
grateful.  The  new-born  social  consciousness,  ex- 
pressing itself  in  the  blundering  but  sincere  efforts 
of  a  conservative  church  to  adjust  its  message 
and  methods  to  the  pressing  needs  of  a  complex 
social  order,  in  the  passionate,  heart-broken 
service  of  heroic  spirits  like  the  sainted  Rauschen- 
busch,  and  in  the  glad  sacrifice  which  the  younger 
generation  made  for  the  welfare  of  the  race,  will 
forever  mark  a  long  step  forward  in  the  upward 
struggle  of  humanity.  "There  never  was  a  time, 
there  never  was  an  age  when  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest  there  was  more  common  human  hearted- 
ness,  more  earnest  desire  to  alleviate  the  lot  of 
those  who  have  to  perform  the  hard  services  of 
the  world  and  face  its  gusty  insecurities;  and 
never  a  time  when  people  were  more  willing  to 
make  personal  sacrifices."  John  Morley  was 
right.  And  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  provin- 
cialism of  the  church  as  an  institution,  the  fact 
remains  that  if  a  thorough  survey  were  made,  the 


MODERN  CHURCH  159 

vast  majority  of  the  individuals  who  constitute 
the  church,  both  ministers  and  laymen,  would 
be  found  in  the  van  of  this  vast  modern  move- 
ment. 

The  wider  conception  of  Christianity  which 
characterizes  the  present  age ;  the  growing  convic- 
tion that  the  principles  taught  by  Jesus  Christ 
must  be  applied  to  economic  and  political  condi- 
tions, however  revolutionary  the  result ;  the  insist- 
ent demand  that  the  Church  of  God  touch  the  whole 
life  of  the  community  with  the  Spirit  of  God  and 
smite  injustice  in  every  form;  those  and  other 
aspects  of  the  modern  religious  movement  make 
it  most  momentous.  The  protest  of  the  ultra- 
conservative  against  the  social  gospel  as  such, 
is  utter  nonsense. 

Let  us  be  grateful  for  all  the  good  that  has 
come,  but,  in  the  interests  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
let  us  not  be  blind  to  its  potential  perils  and 
actual  excesses.  James,  the  psychologist,  was 
made  to  speak  of  the  trend.  Let  Shailer  Mathews, 
the  progressive,  warn  of  the  danger.  The  quota- 
tion is  long,  but  I  think  it  is  essential: 

"A  danger  to  which  Protestantism — particu- 
larly progressive  Protestantism — in  America  is 
exposed  is  that  its  churches  shall  become  mere 
agents  of  social  service.  There  are  many  people 
who,  in  reaction  from  extreme  orthodoxy,  have 
come  to  feel  that  the  sole  business  of  the  church 


160    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

is  to  push  social  reform.  Such  a  valuing  of  the 
church  brings  no  small  satisfaction  to  those  of  us 
who  have  endeavored  to  set  forth  the  social  signifi- 
cance of  the  spiritual  life,  but  we  cannot  let  social 
service  take  the  place  of  God.  A  Protestant 
church  cannot  be  an  ethical  asylum ;  it  must  be  a 
home  in  which  souls  are  born  into  a  newness  of 
life.  We  want  our  ministers  to  be  alive  to  the 
needs  of  the  hour  in  politics  and  in  industrial 
reform,  quick  to  come  to  the  championship  of 
overworked  women  in  factories  and  the  rescue  of 
little  children  who  are  giving  up  their  lives  that 
the  cost  of  production  may  be  kept  low.  We 
want  the  message  from  the  pulpit  to  be  heartily 
in  sympathy  with  our  modern  thinking.  But 
most  of  all  does  American  Protestantism  need  a 
spiritual  passion,  a  contagious  faith  in  the 
supremacy  of  God's  spiritual  order  and  an  alarm 
at  the  misery  that  waits  on  sin." 

Those  words,  like  the  words  of  William  James, 
were  written  some  years  ago.  The  trend  of  events 
in  the  religious  world  since  that  time  has  greatly 
increased  their  significance.  American  Protes- 
tantism has  suffered  more  and  more  from  the  lack 
of  spiritual  passion  and  power.  And  that  hunger 
for  the  bread  that  is  not  given,  though  still  lack- 
ing definite  expression,  is  manifest  everywhere. 

These  facts,  and  many  more  which  might  be 
adduced,  justify  one  in  affirming  that  the  essen- 


MODERN  CHURCH  161 

tial  weakness  of  the  modern  pulpit  is  not  that 
it  has  limited  itself  to  "an  individualistic  and 
self-centered  gospel,"  or  that  it  has  wasted  its 
energies  in  the  preaching  of  a  social  gospel,  but 
that,  in  all  too  many  instances,  it  has  preached 
no  real  gospel  at  all.  Randolph  Bourne  is  not 
an  impartial  judge,  but  probably  he  speaks  with 
as  much  authority  as  the  English  officer  whose 
criticism  has  been  referred  to  when  he  says  that 
"most  sermons  of  to-day  are  little  more  than 
pious  exhortations  to  good  conduct."  The  truth 
of  the  matter  is  not  that  the  character  of  God 
has  been  made  forbiddingly  severe,  but  that  it  has 
been  evacuated  of  every  element  of  ethical  ex- 
action. It  is  not  that  heaven  and  hell  have  been 
administered  to  rebellious  congregations  by  a 
process  of  forcible  spiritual  feeding,  or  that  the 
salvation  of  the  individual  soul  has  been  unduly 
magnified,  but  that  heaven  and  hell  and  the  salva- 
tion of  the  soul  have  so  dropped  out  of  modem 
preaching  that  many  of  the  laity  in  the  evangeli- 
cal churches  no  longer  believe  in  hell  at  all  and 
vast  numbers  of  folks  have  almost  forgotten  that 
they  have  a  soul.  It  is  not  that  the  pulpit  has 
failed  to  adapt  the  fundamentals  of  the  faith  to 
modern  thought  or  to  interpret  the  soul's  deepest 
experiences  in  terms  of  modern  life,  but  that  it 
has  ceased  to  teach,  and  in  many  cases  to  believe 
in  those  fundamental  truths  and  inner  spiritual 


162    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

experiences.  Silvester  Home,  to  whom  I  have 
referred  already,  was  no  conservative.  As  min- 
ister at  Whitefield's  and  member  of  Parliament 
he  showed  himself  a  genuine  apostle  of  the  modern 
interpretation  of  Christianity.  He  believed  in  a 
church  "wide  as  human  life  and  deep  as  human 
need,"  and  died  at  forty-nine,  a  genuine  martyr 
to  that  principle.  But  from  the  courageous  lips 
of  that  modern  apostle  was  wrung  the  startling 
lament:  **TF^  have  some  faith  left  in  education, 
but  almost  none  in  what  our  fathers  called  con- 
version." Let  that  stand  for  the  collective  con- 
fession of  the  modern  ministry,  as  well  it  may, 
for  the  clear  statement  of  the  root  of  the  whole 
difficulty.  And  then  let  it  be  matched  by  Lyman 
Abbott's  terse,  stern,  and  uncompromising  prog- 
nostication of  the  inevitable  result:  "Whenever  a 
minister  forgets  the  splendid  message  of  pardon, 
peace  and  power,  based  on  faith  in  Jesus  Christ 
as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh;  whenever  for  this 
message  he  substitutes  literary  lectures,  critical 
essays,  sociological  disquisitions,  theological  con- 
troversies, or  even  ethical  interpretations  of  the 
universal  conscience;  whenever,  in  other  words, 
he  ceases  to  be  a  Christian  preacher  and  becomes 
a  lyceum  or  seminary  lecturer,  he  divests  himself 
of  that  which  in  all  ages  of  the  world  has  been 
the  power  of  the  Christian  ministry  and  will  be 
its  power  so  long  as  men  have  sins  to  be  forgiven. 


MODERN  CHURCH  163 

temptations  to   conquer  and   sorrows   to  be  as- 
suaged." 

The  failure  of  the  pulpit  to  stress  the  truth 
finds  its  natural  consequent  in  the  failure  of  the 
church  to  manifest  the  life.  Austin  Phelps  says 
that  "the  biblical  idea  of  the  church  is  simply 
that  of  an  organized  body  of  regenerate  mind; 
the  biblical  idea  of  the  world  is  that  of  the  un- 
saved multitude  of  unregenerate  mind.  Two 
classes  of  character,  and  only  two,  make  up  the 
human  race  as  the  Scriptures  represent  it,  namely, 
saints  and  sinners,  friends  of  God  and  enemies 
of  God.  A  living  church  always  fastens  that 
distinction  upon  the  conscience  of  the  world. 
Apostolic  preaching  was  full  of  it.  Religious 
reformations  always  rejuvenate  it."  He  would 
be  a  daring  man  indeed  who  claimed  that  any 
such  line  of  demarkation  exists  to-day,  even  after 
the  term  "regenerate"  has  been  given  the  widest 
meaning.  One  of  the  chief  causes  of  moral  and 
spiritual  decadence  in  Jonathan  Edwards's  time 
was  the  Half- Way  Covenant,  by  which  the  church 
sought  to  retain  its  failing  hold  on  the  people; 
and  it  took  Edwards's  own  sublime  sacrifice  to 
show  the  futility  of  that  method.  Instead  of  a 
specific  Half- Way  Covenant  the  church  of  to-day 
has  no  vital  covenant  at  all.  Its  chief  charac- 
teristic is  the  farthest  remove  from  a  selfish  and 
self-centered    absorption    in    the    things    of    the 


164    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

Spirit.  Its  sorest  hurt,  and  the  one  from  which 
only  the  old  Balm  of  Gilead  can  free  it,  is  not 
the  contemplative  separation  of  its  members  from 
the  highest  interests  of  the  race,  but  the  identifi- 
cation of  all  too  many  of  them  with  the  lower 
interests  of  the  race. 

The  most  terrific  indictment  of  the  modem 
church  I  have  ever  seen  or  heard  was  made,  not 
by  the  men  of  the  army  or  Billy  Sunday,  but  by 
George  A.  Gordon,  the  philosopher-preacher  of 
the  Old  South  Church  in  Boston.  In  his  address, 
"An  Eternal  Gospel,"  he  says:  "An  immense 
amount  of  good  work  is  done  by  all  branches  of 
the  Christian  Church.  The  strongest  defenders 
of  humanity  and  the  mightiest  foes  of  inhumanity 
are  in  these  churches.  Yet  it  must  be  said  that 
these  precious  things  are  confined  to  the  few. 
The  effective  force  in  the  churches  is  still  a 
Gideon's  army,  a  resolute  but  meager  remnant 
of  the  total  enrolled  membership.  .  .  .  What 
about  the  mass  of  church  people?  .  .  .  Who  ever 
heard  them  object  to  the  poor  dancing-girl  on 
the  stage,  dancing  her  soul  away  to  please  low 
tastes?  Who  can  report  any  revolt  on  their  part 
over  the  shame  of  the  city  and  the  traditions  of 
infamy  that  carries  on  its  black  tide  thousands 
of  youths  to  the  pit?  Do  they  not  know  every 
cheap  and  questionable  book,  every  slimy  play, 
every  audacious  device  of  the  person  who  caters 


MODERN  CHURCH  165 

for  pagans,  every  social  function  far  removed 
from  sanctity,  every  avenue  of  exclusiveness  and 
pride,  every  black  art  of  gossip,  every  twist  and 
turn  of  the  ropes  of  inhumanity,  and  do  they  not 
attend  church  and  look  for  the  coming  of  the 
kingdom  of  God?" 

Are  those  harsh  words?  Then  let  him  who 
will  prove  that  they  are  not  deserved.  Is  the 
ethic  suggested  by  them  merely  negative?  Then 
let  some  wise  man  suggest  one  more  positive.  And 
does  the  utterance  of  such  things  lead  some  to 
cry  "Treason"?  The  only  adequate  answer  is 
that  of  him  in  whose  defiant  ears  that  same  cry 
sounded  long  years  ago,  "If  that  be  treason,  then 
make  the  most  of  it."  And  if  anybody  can  sug- 
gest a  better  remedy  than  that  proposed  by  Dr. 
Gordon  himself,  I  would  like  to  hear  it — 

"What  kind  of  revival  will  meet  this  case? 
Hysteria  will  not  do,  nor  the  devoutness  of  Lent, 
nor  a  turn  at  psychic  healing,  whether  as  patient 
or  patron.  What  is  demanded  here  is  that  the  ax 
be  laid  at  the  root  of  the  tree ;  the  new  heaven  and 
the  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness; 
the  renunciation  of  the  devil  and  all  his  works, 
and  the  profound  and  sincere  appeal  to  the 
Eternal  God." 


CHAPTER  XIII 
SALVATION,  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCL^ 


The  dis'^iple  of  Christ  knows  that  it  is  a  self-contradiction 
to  talk  of  saving  oneself  in  forgetfulness  of  others. — Henry 
Churchill  King. 

The  Program  of  Christianity  is  the  conquest  of  the  world 
by  a  campaign  of  testimony  through  empowered  witnesses. — 
Dean  Boswell. 

There  are  two  extremes  among  equally  earnest  men.  One 
class  says — they  might  be  called  the  individualists  of  the 
pulpit — "Get  the  man  converted  and  all's  got."  If  a  man 
is  a  new  creature  through  Christ  Jesus,  he  will  work  out  for 
himself  a  new  society.  .  .  .  The  other  class  of  teachers  says: 
"There  are  conditions  that  make  a  decent  life  impossible, 
cesspools  in  which  they  who  live  must  sin,  or  will  sin  and 
perish.  Therefore  change  conditions  and  life  will  be  true." 
These  are  two  half  truths.  Each  alone  is  a  practical  fallacy; 
and  it  would  be  hard  to  say  which  might  be  the  more  dan- 
gerous. .  .  .  Our  conception  of  the  Gospel  must  be  big 
enough  to  receive  the  truth  in  both  statements,  to  unite  the 
two  half  truths  into  a  whole  truth. — Arthur  S.  Hoyt. 

Those  of  us  who  have  gone  through  a  clearly  marked  con- 
version to  Christianity  will  probably  remember  that  we  re- 
alized our  fellow  men  with  a  new  warmth  and  closeness,  and 
under  higher  points  of  view.  We  were  then  entering  into  the 
Christian  valuation  of  human  life. — Walter  Rauschenbusch. 

It  may  seem  as  if  this  social  aim  of  religion  may  depreciate 
the  aim  of  developing  our  own  personality  and  of  saving  our 
souls.  It  ought  not.  Sometimes  it  does  for  a  time.  But 
we  are  each  so  enormously  important  to  ourselves  that  we 
are  not  likely  to  forget  ourselves,  and  the  practical  struggle 
with  temptation  and  sorrow  will  teach  us  to  seek  strength 
for  our  personal  needs  from  Christ.  In  time  we  shall  learn 
to  say  with  Jesus,  "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself  that  they 
also  may  be  sanctified." — Walter  Rauschenbusch. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
SALVATION,  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIAL 

It  is  affirmed  by  students  of  church  history 
that  in  an  excess  of  religious  zeal  and  a  misguided 
endeavor  to  carry  Calvinistic  theology  to  its 
logical  conclusion,  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins,  friend  and 
pupil  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  conceived  the  fantas- 
tic idea  that  a  genuine  saint  would  be  willing  to  be 
damned  for  the  glory  of  God.  The  theory  died 
of  its  own  dead  weight,  for  it  travestied  the  char- 
acter of  God  and  demonstrated  the  illogical  char- 
acter of  logic  when  rigidly  applied  to  theology. 
Tradition  says  that  the  coup  de  grace  was  ad- 
ministered by  a  student  for  the  ministry  who  was 
undergoing  the  regulation  grueling  at  the  hands 
of  an  examining  committee.  When  asked  if  he 
were  willing  to  be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God, 
he  replied  that  he  was  not,  but  he  was  willing 
that  the  committee  should  be.  Whether  or  not 
tradition  is  correct,  the  fact  is  that  the  stupid 
notion  that  God  wanted  anybody  destroyed  for 
the  sake  of  his  glory  perished  from  the  mind  of 
man. 

The  modern  idea  that  a  real  man  must  be  so 

169 


170    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

absorbed  in  the  task  of  saving  the  world  as  to 
be  utterly  indifferent  to  and  careless  of  the  salva- 
tion of  his  own  soul  is  equally  absurd,  illogical, 
and  ethically  sterile.  It  is  religion  upside  down, 
if,  indeed,  it  can  be  called  religion  at  all.  Brush- 
ing aside  the  obvious  fact  that  a  man  who  is  not 
vitally  interested  in  his  own  eternal  welfare 
cannot,  by  any  possibility,  be  genuinely  inter- 
ested in  anybody  else's,  we  need  to  remind  our- 
selves, in  this  age  of  intellectual  fog,  that  the  very 
essence  of  all  religion  is  the  eager  and  conscien- 
tious adjustment  of  one's  own  personal  relations 
to  God,  and  that  this  adjustment,  effected  and 
perfected  by  faith,  constitutes  salvation;  and  the 
fact  that  the  working  out  of  that  salvation  com- 
prehends vast  and  exacting  social  obligations  does 
not  affect  the  individualistic  element  in  the  least. 
Again  and  again  Christ  emphasizes  the  spiritual 
principle  that  he  who  loses  his  life  "for  my  sake 
and  the  gospel's  shall  find  it  unto  life  eternal." 
But  nowhere  does  he  even  suggest  that  he  who 
loses  his  soul  while  he  does  things  for  others  shall 
find  it  again.  And  let  it  be  said  once  more  that 
the  doing  of  things  for  others  will  save  no  man 
unless  it  is  inspired  by  or  leads  to  vital  oneness 
with  God.  If  anything  that  we  do,  however  noble, 
saves  us,  then  the  gospel  of  salvation  by  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ  goes  by  the  boards.  If  the  historico- 
critical  method  means  anything  at  all,  it  means 


SALVATION— INDIVIDUAL,  SOCIAL  171 

that  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew  can  be 
correctly  interpreted  only  in  its  relation  to  the 
total  teaching  of  Christ.  It  is  true  that  many 
a  man  found  God  on  the  shell-shattered  fields  of 
France,  but  it  is  also  true  that  every  one  who 
found  him  there  did  so,  not  by  the  act  of  fighting, 
but  by  consciously  turning  to  him  in  a  definite 
venture  of  faith.  William  James  could  not  be 
accused  of  prudentialism,  by  the  widest  reach  of 
that  term.  He  confessed  his  inability  to  accept 
either  popular  Christianity  or  scholastic  theism. 
And  yet,  in  his  concluding  lecture  on  the  Gifford 
Foundation,  he  said:  "The  pivot  round  which  the 
religious  life,  as  we  have  traced  it,  revolves,  is 
the  interest  of  the  individual  in  his  private  per- 
sonal destiny.  .  .  .  Science,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  ended  by  utterly  repudiating  the  personal 
point  of  view.  ...  In  spite  of  the  appeal  which 
this  impersonality  of  the  scientific  attitude  makes 
to  a  certain  magnanimity  of  temper,  I  believe  it 
to  be  shallow.  .  .  .  The  axis  of  reality  runs  solely 
through  the  egotistic  places.  ...  By  being  reli- 
gious we  establish  ourselves  in  possession  of  ulti- 
mate reality  at  the  only  points  at  which  reality 
is  given  us  to  guard.  Our  personal  concern  is 
with  our  private  destiny,  after  all."  (The  italics 
are  mine.) 

Not  for  one  moment  am  I  attempting  to  make 
Professor  James  the  defender  of  a  self-centered 


172    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

religious  ideal.  What  I  am  trying  to  do,  and 
what  sorely  needs  to  be  done,  is  to  show  that 
religion  cannot  for  one  moment  be  divorced  from 
eternal  self-interest,  in  the  truest  sense  of  that 
term.  And,  while  the  objective  part  of  reli- 
gious experience  "may  be  incalculably  more  ex- 
tensive than  the  subjective,  yet  the  latter  can 
never  be  omitted  or  suppressed."  Winchester 
says  that  "a  religious  man  is  the  man  filled  with 
a  sense  of  the  presence  of  God  and  of  the  force 
of  spiritual  laws  here  and  now,  convinced  of  an 
immediate  relation  between  himself  and  the  Su- 
preme Being."  And  Bender,  in  his  definition, 
gives  it  a  still  more  apparently  selfish  trend,  for  he 
says,  "Religion  is  that  activity  of  the  human 
impulse  toward  self-preservation  by  means  of 
which  man  seeks  to  carry  his  essential  vital  pur- 
poses through,  against  the  adverse  pressure  of 
the  world,  by  raising  himself  freely  toward  the 
world's  ordering  and  governing  powers  when  the 
limits  of  his  own  strength  are  reached." 

The  correlative  fact  to  be  noted  is  that  only 
this  inner  experience  of  God,  whatever  particular 
form  it  may  take,  and  however  it  may  have  been 
secured,  equips  a  man  for  the  effective  service  of 
his  fellow  men.  Not  only  will  the  genuine  saint, 
who  has  attended  seriously  to  the  salvation  of 
his  own  soul — that  is,  to  such  an  adjustment  of 
his   relations   to   God   as   results   in   a   sense   of 


SALVATION— INDIVIDUAL,  SOCIAL  173 

security  and  peace — be  more  anxious  to  live  a  just 
and  helpful  life,  but  he  will  be  more  able  to  do  so. 
If  his  religion  is  real,  ethical  as  well  as  emotional, 
not  only  will  he  have  a  more  acute  social  con- 
sciousness, but,  what  is  more  to  the  point,  he  will 
do  all  that  he  does  and  be  all  that  he  is,  with  new 
power  and  far  greater  results.  Furthermore,  the 
deeper  and  more  real  his  own  inner  experience  of 
Christ,  the  keener  will  be  his  insights  into  the 
more  complex  and  intricate  social  relationships. 
There  is  vast  significance  in  the  fact  that  the 
daring  social  ventures  recorded  in  the  book  of 
Acts  followed,  and  did  not  precede,  the  day  of 
Pentecost.  And  there  is  equal  significance  in  the 
fact  that  the  missionaries  of  the  cross,  the  men 
and  women  whose  many-sided  service  to  the  race 
is  only  beginning  to  receive  just  recognition,  are 
of  those  who  first  became  concerned  about  and 
made  sure  of  the  salvation  of  their  own  souls. 
Livingstone  was  not  saved  because  he  went  to 
Africa.  He  went  to  Africa  because  he  had  been 
saved,  and  because  he  was  possessed  of  the  spirit 
of  Him  who  had  saved  him.  It  is  very  true  that 
Frances  Willard  became  disgusted  with  her  fruit- 
less effort  to  gain  the  "assurance"  at  a  Methodist 
altar,  and  got  up  and  went  about  her  business. 
But  it  is  also  true  that  both  her  going  to  the 
altar  and  her  extraordinary  lifework  were  the 
result  of  deep  concern  about  her  own  personal 


174    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

relation  to  God,  aroused  in  her  during  a  serious 
illness.  I  do  not  know  what  Dwight  L.  Moody 
preached  that  memorable  day  when  young  Dr. 
Grenfell  was  awakened  to  make  religion  the  busi- 
ness of  his  life  and  flung  out  to  become  the  apostle 
to  Labrador,  but  I  will  venture  a  guess  that  it 
was  the  farthest  remove  from  the  modern  and 
popular  "Gospel  of  Social  Duty." 

There  is  genuine  need  of  getting  it  firmly  estab- 
lished in  our  minds  that,  "in  the  last  analysis,  we 
have  nothing  to  give  but  ourselves,"  and  that 
God  cannot  make  large  and  effective  use  of  us 
in  any  form  of  service  unless  he,  by  virtue  of  our 
surrender  to  him,  can  speak  and  work  through 
us.  "Men  see  their  duty.  (They  see  it  and  know 
it  as  men  have  never  seen  and  known  before.) 
What  they  need  is  adjustment  to  the  sources  of 
power  for  the  performance  of  duty."  Not  only 
do  we  need  Allen's  warning  against  "a  religion 
which  almost  seemed  as  if  it  could  dispense  with 
God,  so  highly  did  it  exalt  the  independent  facul- 
ties of  human  nature,  which  spoke  of  the  sober 
performance  of  moral  duty  as  if  it  were  a  substi- 
tute for  the  passionate  devotion  to  a  Being" ;  but 
we  need  a  clear  grasp  of  the  general  principle 
comprehended  in  Peabody's  words,  "Many  a  man 
can  teach  Christian  doctrine  to  heathen  listeners, 
but  only  a  life  which  has  been  hid  with  Christ  in 
God  can  communicate  to  heathen  lives  the  spiritual 


SALVATION— INDIVIDUAL,  SOCIAL  175 

energy  which  proceeds  through  Christ  from  God." 
He  who  desires  to  do  anything  worth  while  for 
his  fellow  men  must  first  of  all,  by  vital  faith,  let 
God  do  a  great  deal  for  and  in  him.  It  is  very 
true  that  he  need  not  wait  until  he  "feels"  thus 
and  so  before  engaging  in  the  important  enter- 
prise of  helping  to  make  the  world  better.  When 
the  bewildered  Wesley  said  he  could  not  preach 
faith  because  he  had  none,  Peter  Boehler  said, 
"Preach  faith  until  you  have  it,  and  then  you 
will  preach  faith  because  you  have  it."  Rightly 
understood,  that  was  sage  counsel.  Dear  old 
Professor  Hibbard  used  to  tell  his  students  at 
Wesleyan,  "You  cannot  give  a  clear  expression 
unless  you  have  a  clear  impression."  Or,  as 
Phillips  Brooks  put  it,  in  the  large,  and  in  an 
admirable  summing  up  of  the  whole  principle, 
"The  unit  of  power  on  earth  is  not  God :  it  is  not 
man :  it  is  God  and  man :  it  is  God  in  man." 

It  is  this  personal  and  subjective  element  in 
religion  that  makes  the  conversion  and  upbuilding 
of  individual  men  the  basic  work  of  the  Christian 
Church.  The  awakening  of  the  modem  church 
to  the  real  magnitude  of  its  God-given  enterprise 
is  the  outstanding  fact  in  the  religious  life  of 
this  troubled  time,  and  an  earnest  of  the  fact  that, 
whatever  mistakes  are  made,  they  will  be  the 
profitable  blunders  of  enterprise  and  not  the  fatal 
blunders  of  apathetic  indifference.     At  last  we 


176    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

are  catching  a  glimpse  of  the  scope  of  that  great 
task  at  which  God  set  himself  nineteen  centuries 
ago.  Christian  leaders  and  a  growing  number  of 
the  rank  and  file  are  thinking  in  world  terms. 
Thank  God  for  that.  The  belated  brothers  who 
reprimanded  William  Carey,  the  cobbler,  for  his 
missionary  enthusiasm,  and  informed  him  that 
when  God  wanted  to  save  the  heathen,  he  would 
do  so  without  Carey's  assistance,  must  be  turning 
over  in  their  graves.  And  the  other  disciples  of 
equally  circumscribed  vision,  who  are  also  dead, 
though  not  yet  buried,  are  finding  their  seats  in 
Zion's  temple  more  uncomfortable  with  every 
passing  week.  The  slogan  of  the  Haystack  Con- 
ference at  Williams,  "We  can  if  we  will,"  has 
been  changed  to  the  yet  more  dynamic  form,  "We 
can  and  we  will."  The  day  of  foreign  missions 
is  dead,  and  the  day  of  a  World  Church  engaged 
in  a  world  enterprise  has  begun  to  dawn. 

The  stand  of  the  modern  church  for  a  social 
order  based  squarely  on  social  righteousness — 
and  not  merely  "social  justice" — is  growing  un- 
mistakably firmer  every  day.  It  is  true,  lament- 
ably true,  that  some  of  the  older  generation  are 
still  unable  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the  new 
ethic,  but  they  are  few  in  number.  Not  only  are 
the  great  communions  putting  themselves  on 
record  as  in  favor  of  the  application  of  the  ethical 
principles  of  Jesus  to  the  whole  social  life;  not 


SALVATION— INDIVIDUAL,  SOCIAL  177 

only  is  that  momentous  message  being  proclaimed 
from  the  pulpit ;  but  the  change  is  being  brought 
about  by  organized  effort.  When  the  church 
dares  to  take  the  next  step  and,  as  Wesley  did, 
compel  her  members,  however  influential,  to  square 
their  lives  with  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  or 
get  out,  then  her  skirts  will  be  clean.  It  may  be 
that  Gideon's  method  of  developing  morale  will 
have  to  be  adopted,  but  if  it  is,  the  results  will 
be  beneficial. 

The  third  element  in  the  life  of  the  awakening 
church,  namely,  the  determination  to  project  the 
church  into  the  life  of  the  community  in  an  evan- 
gelism as  many-sided  as  that  employed  and  au- 
thorized by  the  Master,  and  to  establish  new 
points  of  contact,  is  likewise  full  of  hope  and 
promise.  The  teaching  and  the  healing  functions 
are  an  integral  part  of  redemptional  effort  and 
not  supplementary  to  it.  The  established  relation 
of  the  body  to  the  mind,  the  need  of  normal  forms 
of  self-expression  for  both  individual  and  com- 
munity life,  and  all  the  other  elements  which  go 
to  make  up  the  principles  of  real  progress,  make 
a  positive  and  comprehensive  religious  ministry 
imperative. 

After  all  this  has  been  said,  however,  the  in- 
dubitable fact  remains  that  the  individual  is  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  unit,  and  that  the 
regenerated  individual  constitutes  the  only  pos- 


178    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

sible  basis  for  a  social  order  either  just  or  Chris- 
tian. A  modern  radical  says,  "Many  spiritual 
leaders  imagine  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  comes 
simply  by  regenerating  souls,  that  as  man  after 
man  turns  his  face  upward,  society  is  duly  up- 
lifted." I  am  not  sure  that  I  know  just  what 
he  means,  but  I  am  sure  that  the  world  is  having 
a  bitter  taste  of  the  attempt  to  uplift  society 
without  regenerating  souls.  "Economically  the 
saintly  group  of  qualities  is  indispensable  to  the 
world's  welfare,"  and  the  fact  to  be  noted  is  that 
the  qualities  cannot  be  had  without  the  saint. 
Woe  be  unto  the  church  if  she  thinks  of  her  task 
as  anything  less  than  a  world  enterprise,  but  woe 
be  unto  her  if  she,  in  the  ardor  of  that  enterprise, 
fails  in  the  fundamental  task  of  saving  the  indi- 
vidual. In  a  recent  number  of  one  of  the  most 
widely  read  magazines,  the  editor  said,  "If  we 
can  help  you  as  individuals,  we  have  done  the 
best  we  can  do  toward  helping  the  country  as  a 
whole — for  what  is  the  country  'as  a  whole'.'*  It 
is  nothing  but  a  collection  of  individuals."  That 
is  sense.  And  the  Christian  Church  is  founded 
on  the  belief  that  the  best  way  to  help  individuals, 
and,  consequently,  the  world,  is  to  get  them  saved, 
genuinely  saved,  by  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Canon  Freemantle  said,  "The  Christian  Church 
is  designed,  not  to  save  individuals  out  of  the 
world,  but  to  save  the  world  itself,"  and  it  seems 


SALVATION— INDIVIDUAL,  SOCIAL  179 

to  me  that  he  was  not  very  happy  in  the  form  of 
his  statement.  Peabody  came  much  nearer  the 
actual  fact  when  he  said,  "The  problem  of  other 
centuries  was  that  of  saving  people  from  the 
world.  The  problem  of  the  present  century  is 
that  of  making  people  fit  to  save  the  world."  Woe 
be  unto  the  church  if  she  fails  to  stand  for  the 
inalienable  rights  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men.  If  she  doesn't  her  doors  might  just  as  well 
be  closed.  But  woe  be  unto  the  church  if  she 
makes  "social  justice"  her  real  message  and  the 
securing  of  "rights"  the  sole  end  of  her  enter- 
prise. As  Brooks  said,  many  years  ago,  "The 
church  is  not  going  to  convert  the  world  by  turn- 
ing policeman."  Granting  that  terrible  wrongs 
have  been  done,  the  bitter  fruits  of  which  are  now 
being  eaten  by  the  whole  race,  and  granting  that 
he  who  does  not  do  justly,  love  mercy,  and  walk 
humbly  before  God  is  not  religious,  even  though 
he  occupy  a  place  of  leadership  in  the  church, 
it  must  also  be  granted  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
will  never  be  established  by  a  balancing  of  rights 
between  warring  factions,  each  one  of  which  is 
intent  upon  securing  its  own.  It  will  be  secured 
by  the  raising  up  of  men  who  are  intent  upon 
going  the  second  mile,  at  whatever  cost  to  them- 
selves. There  are  celestial  diameters  between  the 
socialists  of  the  New  Testament,  impoverishing 
themselves  for  Christ's  sake,  that  the  needy  might 


180    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

share  in  all,  and  the  "unsocialistic  socialism,"  as 
a  prominent  German  Marxian  calls  it,  that  de- 
mands not  only  its  pound  of  flesh  but  possession 
of  the  whole  body  politic.  In  the  sane  and  splen- 
did words  of  that  true  friend  of  all  men,  Frederic 
Robertson:  "Christianity  binds  up  men  in  a  holy 
brotherhood.  It  is  not  sent  into  this  world  to 
establish  monarchy  or  secure  the  franchise,  to 
establish'  socialism  or  to  frown  it  into  annihila- 
tion ;  it  is  sent  to  establish  a  charity  and  a  modera- 
tion and  a  sense  of  duty  and  a  love  of  right  which 
will  modify  human  life  according  to  any  circum- 
stances that  may  possibly  arise." 

Woe  be  unto  the  church  if  she  fail  to  minister 
to  the  world  in  every  way  that  means  the  trans- 
formation of  human  life  and  character.  Her 
impact  upon  the  world  must  be  made  through 
manifold  agencies.  But  woe  be  unto  the  church 
if  she  become  a  mere  social  center  or  community 
center  for  the  promotion  of  terrestrial  interests. 
The  controversy  still  rages  as  to  just  how  much 
the  church  should  do  and  how  much  she  should 
get  done.  In  all  probability,  it  will  continue  to 
rage  for  many  years,  for  it  is  a  complex  and 
vexing  question.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that 
Dr.  Timothy  Prescott  Frost  was  eminently  wise 
when  he  said,  "A  live  church  is  not  first  of  all  a 
hive  of  religious  industry  so  much  as  an  inspirer 
of  religious  industry  in  the  midst  of  all  industries, 


SALVATION— INDIVIDUAL,  SOCIAL  181 

an  upper  room  where  the  disciples  sit  with  the 
Master."  It  means  something  that,  in  all  his 
varied  and  blessed  ministry,  Jesus  kept  the  ques- 
tion of  the  individual  and  his  relation  to  God  in 
the  foreground.  Not  only  is  it  true  that,  while 
reforms  raged  and  social  problems  seethed,  he 
was  content  to  talk  with  humble  folks  about  God, 
but  it  is  also  true  that  all  that  he  did  for  the 
bodies  and  minds  of  men  was  made  the  means  of 
rousing  them  to  repentance  and  faith.  In  the 
puissant  words  of  Nolloth,  "He  came  bathed  in 
eternity,  to  speak  to  perishing  men  about  the 
things  which  eternally  matter,  and  he  would  not 
be  drawn  from  his  purpose."  It  means  that,  by 
the  example  and  authority  of  the  Saviour  of  the 
world,  the  mission  of  the  Christian  Church  is  to 
individual  men — because  we  don't  happen  to  have 
any  other  kind — and  that  her  real  mission  is  to 
the  souls  of  men.  It  is  essential  to  think  in  world 
terms  and  undertake  a  world  enterprise,  but  the 
whole  thing  will  come  to  naught  as  surely  as  did 
the  crusades  unless  the  inner  and  individualistic 
element  is  at  the  heart  of  it  all.  It  is  absolutely 
right  to  try  to  save  "the  whole  man."  But  it  is 
necessary  to  remember  that  if  his  body  is  healed, 
his  mind  instructed,  his  economic  status  improved, 
while  his  soul  remains  unchanged  by  the  power 
of  the  Spirit,  his  last  state  is  very  liable  to  be 
worse  than  his  first.    And  let  it  be  said  once  more 


182    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

that  any  effective  way  of  saving  a  man's  soul 
except  by  conversion  is  yet  to  be  discovered. 
That  is  why  a  real  seer  has  uttered  the  eminently 
wise  words:  "Christianity  would  sacrifice  its 
divinity  if  it  abandoned  its  missionary  character 
and  became  a  mere  educational  institution.  .  .  . 
When  the  power  of  reclaiming  the  lost  dies  out 
of  the  church,  it  ceases  to  be  a  church.  It  may 
remain  a  useful  institution,  though  it  is  most 
likely  to  become  an  immoral  and  mischievous  one. 
Where  that  power  remains,  there,  whatever  is 
wanting,  it  may  still  be  said  that  the  tabernacle 
of  God  is  with  men." 

In  order  that  this  all-important  and  divinely 
ordained  work  shall  be  done  in  this  chaotic  time, 
what  shall  be  the  message  and  spirit  of  the  church  ? 
With  what  appeal  shall  men  really  be  won  to  God  ? 
Where  shall  the  emphasis  be  put.'^  To  answering 
those  questions  wisely  and  well  we  are  all  sum- 
moned. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  AND  THE  AGE 
OF  RECONSTRUCTION 


If  I  go  into  one  of  our  assemblies  of  praise,  I  find  that  we 
are  still  tarrying  at  Jerusalem,  waiting  for  the  promise  of  the 
Father.  The  mental  attitude  and  spiritual  pose  of  the  modern 
church  is  Pre- Pentecostal.  And  in  this  thin  and  immature 
relationship  is  to  be  found  the  secret  of  our  common  weari- 
ness and  impotence.  We  are  busy  invoking  rather  than  re- 
ceiving, busy  asking  rather  than  using.  I  think  that  if  the 
Apostle  Paul  were  to  visibly  enter  our  assembly  when  we 
are  singing  these  strained  and  fervid  supplications,  he  would 
wonderingly  and  anxiously  ask,  "Did  ye  receive  the  Holy 
Ghost  when  ye  believed?"  We  need  to  learn  the  things  we 
have  known  the  longest.  Let  us  assume  the  Pentecostal  at- 
titude of  zealous  and  hungry  reception.  Above  all,  let  us 
cultivate  a  sensitive  intimacy  with  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  will 
be  our  suflBciency,  and  we  shall  move  about  in  the  enduement 
of  Pentecostal  power. — J.  H.  Jowett. 

When  we  consider  the  Christian  attitude  as  a  whole  as  pre- 
sented in  the  New  Testament,  the  conclusion  seems  inevit- 
able that  on  the  one  hand  patience,  forbearance,  meekness, 
and  forgiveness  are  characteristic  of  its  spirit  rather  than 
resistance  to  or  revolt  against  oppression  and  injustice,  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  its  reliance  for  the  progress  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  not  on  the  arm  of  flesh  but  on  the  spirit 
of  the  living  God,  on  moral  suasion  and  religious  influence 
rather  than  on  social  pressure  or  political  action. — Principal 
Garvie. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  AND  THE  AGE 
OF  RECONSTRUCTION 

Any  attempt  to  formulate  a  gospel  for  an  age 
of  reconstruction  is  foredoomed  to  failure,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  gospel  for  this  or  any 
other  age  cannot  be  reduced  to  a  formula.  Like 
life  itself,  it  is  full  of  paradoxes.  Always  it 
assumes  forms  as  multitudinous  as  the  individuali- 
ties of  those  who  proclaim  it  and  requires  em- 
phases as  varied  as  the  individualities  of  those 
who  hear  it.  One  of  the  astounding  things  in 
Christian  history  is  the  way  in  which  God  can 
make  use  of  widely  different  motives  to  rouse  men 
to  heroic  Christian  living. 

Therein,  let  it  be  noted,  lies  the  fallacy  in  much 
of  the  wholesale  criticism  of  "the  appeal  to  fear," 
"the  appeal  to  selfishness,"  the  representation  of 
God  "as  a  policeman,"  and  all  the  other  forms 
of  the  Christian  message  so  derided  just  now. 
The  important  fact  is,  not  that  such  preaching 
may  be  theologically  sound  or  scriptural  in  its 
essence,  but  that  it  is  psychologically  wise  and 
spiritually  effective.  When  Phillips  Brooks  said, 
185 


186    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

"I  would  rather  be  a  believer  in  the  most  material 
notions  of  eternal  penalty  and  get  out  of  that 
belief  the  hard  and  frightened  solemnity  and 
scrupulousness  which  it  has  to  give  than  to  hold 
all  the  sweet,  broad  truth  to  which  God  is  now 
leading  us  and  have  it  make  life  seem  a  playtime 
and  the  world  a  game,"  he  gave  unanswerable 
answer  to  every  man  who  sneers  at  the  fathers' 
conception  of  God  while  he  falls  far  short  of  the 
fathers'  consecration  to  God.  And  when  Beecher 
said  to  the  students  at  Yale,  "When  men  have 
been  dead  without  knowing  it,  when  men  have  been 
long  dead,  anything  that  puts  in  them  the  germ 
of  life  is  better  than  that  long  propriety  of 
damnation,"  he  not  only  put  a  quietus  on  a  lot 
of  our  modern  squeamishness  against  plain  preach- 
ing, but  he  laid  down  one  essential  principle  for 
a  real  message  for  any  age,  namely,  the  power  to 
rouse  men  to  decision  and  action. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  true  that  the  dominant  char- 
acteristic of  every  age  determines,  to  a  certain 
extent,  the  form  of  the  gospel  for  that  age.  In 
the  interpretation  of  the  Christian  ideal  there 
must  be  an  element  of  timeliness  as  well  as  an 
element  of  timelessness.  No  man  who  lacks  a 
knowledge  of  or  sympathy  with  the  world  of  his 
own  time  can  be  an  effective  preacher. 

Several  years  ago  Arthur  S.  Hoyt  said,  "Our 
age  has  three  characteristics  easily  discerned:  its 


THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  187 

absorbing  interest  in  this  world,  its  social  unrest 
and  its  critical  spirit."  That  was  a  splendid 
summary  of  the  world  situation  before  the  war. 
Of  the  present  it  is  not  so  easy  to  speak,  for 
conditions  are  still  chaotic.  I  believe  it  is  fair 
to  say,  however,  that  it  is  marked  by  those  same 
three  tendencies,  carried  to  the  extreme,  plus  a 
clearly  defined  and  growing  reaction  from  each. 
The  excesses  are  tragically  self-evident.  Prac- 
tical materialism  and  practical  atheism  are  ram- 
pant; religion  is  attacked  on  every  side  and  the 
social  unrest  has  become  a  social  revolution, 
changing  the  very  life  of  the  race. 

Of  the  widespread  turning  to  the  elemental 
things  in  religion,  with  its  attendant  demand  for 
certainties  and  an  inner  experience,  many  have 
spoken  with  clearness  and  force.  Weary  of  the 
barren  abstractions  of  a  critical  and  rationalistic 
age,  and  no  longer  viewing  a  childlike  faith  as 
crass  credulity,  a  growing  number  are  seeking 
the  simplicities  of  faith  and  practice.  And  of 
the  potentialities  of  unselfishness,  awaiting  only 
the  stimulus  of  a  great  cause  to  make  them  divinely 
kinetic,  the  war  has  been  the  great  revealer.  The 
spectacle  of  a  vast  multitude  willing  to  renounce 
everything,  including  life  itself,  for  the  safety 
and  welfare  of  others,  constitutes  a  something 
so  superb  that  one  impoverishes  language  to  de- 
scribe it.    Over  against  the  mob  of  madmen  will- 


188    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

ing  to  assassinate  and  destroy  by  wholesale  that 
they  may  have  their  share  of  this  world's  goods 
is  a  growing  army  of  heroic  souls  willing  to  die, 
if  need  be,  that  life  may  be  made  rich  and  blessed 
for  others.  There  is  little  wonder  that  to  all 
who  have  felt  the  compulsion  of  this  selfless  spirit 
the  conventional  activities  of  the  modern  church 
seem  but  aimless  nothingnesses  and  the  unheroic 
appeals  of  the  modern  pulpit  mere  moral  and 
spiritual  syllabub. 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  the  reaction  from 
that  fatal  absorption  in  the  things  of  this  world 
and  the  innermost  spirit  of  the  present  time  are 
most  strikingly  expressed  by  the  anonymous 
author  of  an  article  entitled  "Whither.'^"  which 
appeared  in  the  Atlantic.  I  quote  at  length. 
This  Unknown  says: 

"The  rush  of  new  powers  across  the  horizon 
of  our  knowledge  has  made  the  God  of  our  fathers 
seem  petty  and  old-fashioned.  In  our  singing  we 
have  exalted  the  faith  of  our  fathers,  but  in  our 
thinking  we  have  set  it  one  side.  Their  belief 
in  prayer,  their  resignation  to  suffering,  their 
confidence  in  the  merits  of  Christ,  and  their  fear 
of  the  consequences  of  sin — all  seemed  to  us  out- 
grown and  absurd.  But  the  pendulum  has  swung 
once  more  in  the  opposite  direction.  We  are  find- 
ing that  our  life  is  not  broader  but  narrower. 
Beside  theirs  it  is  empty  and  shallow.     It  cannot 


THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  189 

stand  the  acid  test.  .  .  .  There  is  much  about 
reform,  suffrage,  the  fighting  of  Tammany,  meas- 
ures for  the  physical  betterment  of  factory  boys 
and  girls.  There  are  many  wrongs  to  right,  for 
the  most  part  centering  in  the  body,  but  in  spite 
of  my  sympathy  with  each  distinct  measure  and 
my  strenuous  efforts  to  help  forward  some  of 
them,  I  feel  great  sense  of  lack.  The  horizon  is 
near  and  attainable;  the  sky  comes  down  like  a 
brass  bowl  over  our  heads;  I  stifle  in  this  world 
of  nostrums,  of  remedies,  of  external  cures  for 
moral  evils." 

That  those  words  were  written  several  years 
ago  but  enhances  their  significance.  The  swing 
of  the  pendulum  has  been  accelerated  rather  than 
stayed  by  the  stupendous  intervening  events.  The 
soul  hunger,  so  strikingly  articulate  in  the  case 
of  the  Unknown,  is  becoming  articulate  because 
it  is  just  as  real  in  millions  of  other  cases.  "In 
every  community  there  is  already  rising  a  cry 
for  elemental  religion.  .  .  .  American  laymen" — 
yes,  and  an  unnumbered  throng  outside  the  church 
— "are  asserting  that  they  want  to  be  assured 
of  God  and  immortality  and  the  worth  of  right- 
eousness. They  want  companionship  in  spiritual 
loneliness,  comfort  in  hours  of  pain,  courage  in 
moments  of  moral  wavering.  Their  souls  are 
athirst  for  the  Unknown  and  they  will  be  satisfied 
with  nothing  save  the  water  that  comes  from  the 


190    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

river  of  God."  Yes,  and  even  where  the  need  is 
not  sensed  at  all  it  exists.  Human  life,  as  it  is 
constituted  to-day,  with  all  its  moral  idealism 
and  stupendous  social  program,  is  all  awry,  be- 
cause it  lacks  the  background  of  eternity  and  the 
consolations  and  compulsions  of  d  loving,  holy 
God,  actively  present  in  the  souls  of  men.  In 
spite  of  their  generosity  and  persistent  good 
nature  and  altruistic  spirit  men  are  failing  to 
regenerate  society  because  of  the  vast  majority 
it  cannot  be  said,  as  it  was  said  of  one  of  old,  "he 
endured  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible."  And 
even  at  the  risk  of  seeming  hypercritical,  I  want 
to  say  that  the  leaders  themselves,  the  men  who  are 
trying  to  work  out  a  programme  that  will  give 
us  a  new  earth,  seem  to  lack  that  sense  of  intimacy 
with  God  which  must  characterize  the  truest 
leadership.  It  is  all  well  enough  to  believe  in 
"Providence,"  but  all  through  this  wild  world 
conflict  I  have  waited  in  vain  for  the  throbbing 
expressions  of  dependence  upon  God  which  marked 
the  public  and  private  utterances  of  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

That  is  the  situation.  Obviously,  then,  if  the 
gospel  for  this  new  age  is  to  be  marked  by  timeli- 
ness as  well  as  timelessness,  it  must  emphasize 
the  Eternal  rather  than  the  temporal,  the  per- 
sonal rather  than  the  impersonal,  the  inner  ex- 
perience as  well  as  the  outer  expression  of  reli- 


THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  191 

gion,  and  the  exactingly  ethical  and  comprehen- 
sive character  of  salvation.  "What  the  work  of 
philanthropy  and  the  reform  of  industry  need 
is  the  larger  horizon  of  the  view  from  above." 
What  the  Christian  message  needs  is  the  element 
of  largeness  and  otherworldliness  which  gives  to 
heroic  living  the  incentive  of  an  infinite  outlook. 
It  would  be  a  calamity  to  return  to  any  hectic 
mood  whose  finest  self-expression  consists  of  sing- 
ing oneself  away  to  everlasting  bliss.  Sincere 
men  of  all  beliefs  and  no  beliefs  at  all  have  spewed 
that  whole  sickly  business  out  of  their  mouths. 
But  the  existing  situation  will  terminate  in  a  far 
greater  calamity  unless  there  are  restored  to  life 
the  infinite  worth  of  immortality  and  the  horizon- 
less  scope  of  eternity.  It  is  high  time  that  men 
were  told  to  look  up,  remembering  their  high 
estate,  and,  under  every  circumstance,  and  at 
whatever  cost,  live  "after  the  power  of  an  endless 
life."  Amid  the  babel  of  tongues  and  super- 
abundance of  talk  about  democracy,  we  all  need 
to  be  reminded  that  if  we  are  really  sons  of  God 
"our  citizenship  is  in  heaven."  Men  do  need 
encouragement,  and  how  can  a  pilgrim  of  the 
infinite  be  encouraged  except  by  the  renewal  of 
his  faith  in  the  Home  at  the  end  of  the  road? 
Take  hope  out  of  life  and  you  wreck  life.  "We 
cannot  safely  exile  heaven  from  our  moral  and 
spiritual  culture."     Men  do  need  warning — how 


192    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

sorely  they  need  it  and  how  little  they  are  getting ! 
— but  how  shall  they  be  warned  unless  they  are 
told  in  terms  so  plain  that  they  cannot  fail  to 
understand,  that  sin  persisted  in  terminates  inevi- 
tably in  conscious  alienation  from  God,  which  is 
hell,  and  a  hell  infinitely  more  hideous  for  a  being 
made  in  the  image  of  God  than  all  the  roaring 
infernos  created  by  the  imagination  of  man?  If 
there  is  one  thing  this  mad  world  needs  to  have 
burned  into  its  consciousness,  it  is  that  while  God 
is  not  a  policeman  he  is  a  holy  and  ethically  exact- 
ing God,  and  that  the  man  who  lives  an  earthly, 
sensual,  selfish  life  here,  and  then,  with  his  soul 
seared  by  sin,  plunges  into  the  unknown,  in  the 
expectation  that  God  will  bring  him  out  all  right 
somehow,  is  a  blind,  fatuous  fool.  And,  above 
everything  else,  men  need  the  clear  consciousness 
of  God's  presence,  the  sense  of  the  Infinite  within 
them.  And  how  shall  they  get  it  unless  it  is  made 
plain  once  more,  not  that  there  is  an  impersonal 
energy,  permeating  the  universe,  but  that  there 
is  a  personal  God,  who  orders  all  our  lives  if  we 
will  but  let  him  ?  The  trouble  with  the  immanence 
of  God,  as  conceived  by  the  modern  man,  is  that 
it  amounts  to  a  practical  pantheism,  with  God 
everywhere  in  general  and  nowhere  in  particular. 
The  personal  element  must  be  put  at  the  front  in 
the  gospel,  not  only  by  stressing  anew  the  incon- 
trovertible  fact   that   "nothing   but    a   personal 


THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  193 

Saviour,  in  personal  relationship  with  the  per- 
sonal human  spirit,  can  communicate  power,"  but 
also  by  endeavoring  to  restore  to  the  soul  the 
consciousness  of  the  presence  of  a  personal  and 
transcendent  God.  In  the  deepest  and  truest 
sense  it  must  always  be  true  that  "Christianity 
offers  a  deeper  consolation  than  any  prospect  of 
endless  life  or  of  millennial  glories.  It  teaches 
the  weary  and  the  sorrowing  and  the  lonely  to 
look  up  to  heaven  and  to  say,  'Thou,  God,  carest 
for  me.'  " 

If  it  be  objected  that  this  message  still  lacks 
the  heroic  in  motive  and  the  social  comprehensive- 
ness demanded  by  the  new  age,  let  it  be  said  that 
all  such  will  be  contained  in  the  presentation  of 
an  ethical  God  who  offers  to  man  a  salvation 
based  upon  the  absolute  surrender  of  the  total 
personality  to  him  and  resulting  in  the  invest- 
ment of  that  transformed  and  vitalized  person- 
ality in  the  stupendous  enterprise  of  helping  to 
save  the  world.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  men  are 
willing  to  do  anything  but  make  that  complete 
self-surrender,  because  that  is  the  hardest  thing 
to  do  and  requires  the  greatest  moral  courage. 
And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  must  do  that,  for 
that  is  the  all-comprehensive  act  which  includes 
all  subordinate  acts.  I  do  not  mean  simply  that 
unless  a  man  is  thoroughly  converted  he  will  go 
to  hell,  but  the  equally  important  fact  that,  with- 


194    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

out  a  growing  body  of  heroic  souls,  who,  through 
spiritual  conflict,  have  put  on  the  form  of  right- 
eousness, this  world  will  be  a  hell.  "Consecration 
to  the  will  of  God,  as  Christ  conceives  the  matter, 
covers  all — this  supreme  giving  of  the  self  in- 
cludes all  subordinate  givings."  And  there  will 
be  no  lack  of  the  heroic  or  of  opportunities  for 
its  manifestation  if  that  surrender  is  made.  I 
still  believe,  and  see  no  valid  reason  for  changing 
my  belief,  that  the  greatest  constraining  and 
transforming  force  which  can  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men  is  not  the 
call  to  help  their  fellow  men  but  the  call  to  sur- 
render themselves  to  God.  The  man  who 
really  undertakes  to  fulfill  the  injunction  of 
Christ,  "If  any  man  would  come  after  me,  let 
him  deny  himself,  take  up  his  cross  and  follow 
me,"  will  find  his  life  crammed  with  the  heroic, 
filled  with  adventure  of  the  highest  order,  and 
replete  with  opportunities  for  the  sublimest  sacri- 
fice. Conversion — real  conversion — is  not  a  way 
of  escape  from  the  world:  it  is  the  only  way  into 
the  noblest  service  to  the  world.  Livingstone's 
life  motive,  rightly  interpreted  and  rigidly  ap- 
plied, is  big  enough  and  compelling  enough  to 
grip  the  hardiest  and  most  daring  spirit  of  these 
daring  times:  "I  will  place  no  value  on  anything 
I  have,  or  may  possess,  except  in  relation  to  the 
kingdom  of  Christ.     If  anything  I  have  will  ad- 


THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  195 

vance  the  interests  of  that  kingdom,  it  shall  be 
given  away  or  kept  only  as  by  giving  or  keeping 
it  I  may  promote  the  glory  of  Him  to  whom  I 
owe  all  my  hopes  in  time  and  eternity."  In  other 
words — and  the  modern  pulpit  should  ransack  the 
riches  of  its  inspired  genius  to  make  men  see  and 
feel  this  truth — the  strong  man  who  falls  on  his 
face  before  God  in  Christ  and  cries  from  the  deeps 
of  his  aroused  consciousness,  "Thy  will  be  done," 
is  taking  the  sure,  the  only  path  to  heroic  living 
and  world  service.  "This  petition  includes  every 
good  for  every  son  of  man — all  high  enterprise 
and  all  great  goals.  All  justice,  all  truths,  all 
beauty,  all  merciful  ministry,  are  here  inclosed — 
all  the  triumphs  of  science,  of  literature,  of  art, 
of  music,  of  philanthropy,  of  highest  spiritual  en- 
deavor— the  vision  of  the  city  beautiful,  the  city 
honest,  the  city  serving,  the  vision  of  a  redeemed 
humanity  sharing  in  the  very  life  of  God."  Thus, 
in  his  address  on  "The  Essence  of  Life,"  does 
Henry  Churchill  King  give  us  the  very  essence 
of  the  Christian  ideal. 

After  all  has  been  said  and  done,  however,  I 
wonder  if  the  whole  matter  of  "adapting"  the 
gospel  to  the  peculiar  needs  of  the  age  is  not 
bulking  too  large  in  our  thinking.  I  wonder  if 
we  are  not  trying  to  accomplish  by  mechanics  that 
which  can  be  accomplished  only  by  dynamics,  to 
bring  about  by  secondary  causes  that  which  can 


196    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

be  brought  about  only  by  primary  causes.  In 
plain  words,  aren't  we  fussing  too  much  about 
the  manward  side  of  the  business  and  failing  to 
give  due  attention  to  the  Godward?  There  is 
vast  significance  for  the  minister  of  to-day  in 
the  well-known  experience  of  Thomas  Chalmers, 
the  greatest  preacher  Scotland  has  produced  in 
over  two  hundred  years.  For  years  he  preached 
with  brilliancy  and  impetuous  eloquence  on  all  the 
phases  of  morality  and  social  reform,  but  with- 
out effect.  Then  he  fell  ill,  had  a  profound  per- 
sonal religious  experience — returned  to  his  pulpit 
to  preach,  not  "Do  this  and  live,"  but  "Believe 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved" ;  and  lo !  his  ministry  was  transfigured. 
As  he  himself  put  it:  "During  the  whole  of  that 
period  in  which  I  made  no  attempt  against  the 
natural  enmity  of  the  mind  to  God,  I  certainly 
did  pre^  the  reformation  of  honor  and  truth 
and  integrity  among  my  people,  but  I  never  once 
heard  of  such  reformation  having  been  effected 
among  them.  I  am  not  sensible  that  all  the  vehe- 
mence with  which  I  urged  the  virtues  and  the 
proprieties  of  social  life  had  the  weight  of  a 
feather  on  the  moral  habits  of  parishioners.  And 
it  was  not  till  I  got  impressed  by  the  utter  aliena- 
tion of  the  heart  in  all  its  desires  and  affections 
from  God;  it  was  not  till  reconciliation  to  him 
became  the  distinct  and  the  prominent  object  of 


THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  197 

my  Tninisterial  exertions;  it  was  not  till  the  free 
offer  of  forgiveness  through  the  blood  of  Christ 
was  urged  upon  their  acceptance^  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  given  through  the  channel  of  Christ's 
mediation  to  all  who  ask  him  was  set  before  them 
as  the  unceasing  object  of  their  dependence  and 
prayers,  that  I  ever  heard  of  any  of  those  sub- 
ordinate reformations  which  I  aforetime  made  the 
earnest  and  the  zealous,  but,  I  am  afraid,  at  the 
same  time,  the  ultimate  object  of  my  earlier  minis- 
trations, [The  italics  are  mine.]  You  have 
taught  me  that  to  preach  Christ  is  the  only  effec- 
tive way  of  preaching  morality  in  all  its  branches.'* 
I  said  that  this  extraordinary  experience  has 
great  value  just  now  for  the  individual  preacher. 
It  has  vast  value  for  the  whole  Church  of  God. 
Surely,  we  have  here  another  demonstration  of 
the  too  frequently  forgotten  fact  that  Chris- 
tianity's conquest  of  hostile  forces  and  healing 
ministry  to  a  sin-sick  world  are  not  to  be  attained 
by  the  wisdom  of  this  world.  And  surely  we  have 
valid  testimony  to  the  fact  that  a  man  in  the 
pulpit,  speaking  out  of  a  vital  experience  of  him 
who  is  able  to  save  to  the  uttermost,  and  a  Church 
of  the  Living  God,  filled  with  the  Life  of  the 
Spirit,  and  ministering  to  men  in  the  manifesta- 
tion of  that  Life,  will  change  the  face  of  the  world, 
in  spite  of  minor  faults  in  the  form  of  the  message 
and  in  attempted  methods  of  service.     Do  not 


198    THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

tell  me  that  this  conclusion  is  cheap  and  evasive 
and  savors  of  fanatical  pietism.  If  George  Gor- 
don is  right  when  he  says  we  are  failing  because 
"the  modern  man  is  a  poor  traditionalist,  a  pale 
Protestant,  a  literal  Christian,  minus  the  central 
idea  of  the  Christian  faith,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,"  then  I  am  right  when  I  say  that 
the  gospel  for  this  age  of  reconstruction  must, 
above  everything  else,  be  a  gospel  of  redemption 
through  faith  in  Christ,  by  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  that  the  church,  to  function  effec- 
tively, as  the  experts  put  it,  must  be  a  church 
composed  of  men  and  women  who  are  honestly, 
actually  dominated  and  directed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit.  I  do  not  affirm  that  this  is  all  we  need. 
I  do  affirm  that  this  is  our  basic  and  outstanding 
need. 

In  my  papers  I  found  a  clipping  containing  a 
statement  which  seems  to  me  to  sum  up  the  whole 
matter.  I  have  no  means  of  identifying  the 
author.  But  what  of  it?  Let  an  Unknown  state 
the  satisfaction  of  a  need  to  which  the  other 
Unknown  gave  such  exquisite  expression.  Here 
are  his  words: 

"The  gospel  of  the  Spirit  is  the  supreme  need 
of  the  church  to-day.  There  never  was  a  time 
when  the  church  was  so  busily  engaged  in  such  a 
multitude  of  outward  tasks,  and  hardly  a  time, 
either,  when  the  church  was  more  inwardly  rest- 


THE  ETERNAL  GOSPEL  199 

less,  more  spiritually  dissatisfied  and  in  many 
places  more  desperately  inefficient.  The  danger 
of  her  practicalness  is  its  superficiality.  She  is 
playing  Martha  in  our  generation.  The  Master 
has  come;  she  rises  to  serve  him,  that  his  will 
should  be  done  in  government,  in  home  and  school, 
in  all  philanthropy  and  good  citizenship;  these 
are  her  anxieties.  It  is  all  noble  and  good,  spring- 
ing from  Christian  instincts,  undeniably  sublime, 
but  what  if  in  our  business  to  do  things  for  him 
we  lose  the  attentive  ear  that  listens  to  him  and 
the  ready  heart  that  groweth  like  him.'*  What  if, 
like  children,  we  fall  to  running  many  errands 
for  a  Father  whom  we  do  not  inwardly  know ;  and 
what  if  amid  the  clatter  of  our  hurrying  footsteps 
the  Master  once  more  were  saying,  'Martha, 
Martha,  thou  art  anxious  and  troubled  about 
many  things.  But  one  thing  is  needful'.''  For 
the  real  power  of  the  church  has  never  been  the 
multitude  of  her  tasks,  but  the  quality  of  her 
souls;  the  real  business  of  the  church  has  never 
been  the  multiplication  of  quantity  in  service,  but 
the  production  of  quality  in  men.  That  men 
should  be  born  anew,  should  become  the  organs 
and  instruments  of  vaster  spiritual  life  of  God — • 
that  is  the  central  business  of  the  church,  the 
biggest  business  of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  tran- 
scendent God  and  the  perfect  Son  can  make  a  true 
theology  and  a  lofty  ethic,  but  not  a  deep  religion. 


200   THE  INDIVIDUALISTIC  GOSPEL 

God  the  Father  revealed  in  God  the  Son  must 
somehow  become  God  the  Spirit  in  us.  The  inter- 
pretation of  this  complete  religious  experience, 
crowned  in  the  conscious  inward  communion  of 
the  living  God,  is  the  great  task  of  the  church. 
This  is  the  preaching  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Nor 
is  it  impossible  even  with  the  practical  mind  of 
the  modem  man  to  make  it  constrainingly  clear." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Lyman,  on  God's 
judgment  on  the  Kaiser, 
114;  origins  of  the  Chris- 
tian life,  143;  real  message 
of  the  pulpit,  162 

Accountability,  preaching  of, 
45 

Age,  the  present;  character- 
istics of,  187;  spirit  of,  188 

Allen,  A.  V.  G.,  on  the  in- 
congruities of  Jonathan 
Edwards's  teaching,  128; 
Edwards's  asceticism,  135; 
social  value  of  Great  Awak- 
ening, 140;  false  religion, 
174 

Army,  religion  in  the,  13,  43; 
idea  of  God  in  the,  107 

Ashe,  Elizabeth,  Appraise- 
ment, 108. 

Awakening,  the  Great;  social 
value  of,  140 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  on 
need  of  effective  preach- 
ing, 186 

Boswell,  Dean,  on  program 
of  Christianity,  168 

Brainerd,  David,  unselfish- 
ness of,  138 

Brierley,  J.,  on  cause  of  de- 
cadence in  modern  church, 
21;  Puritan  type  of  Chris- 
tianity, 95;  social  value  of 
Wesleyan  Revival,  146; 
hypocritical  church  mem- 
bers, 150;  the  new  birth, 
150 

Brooks,  Phillips,  on  feasibil- 
ity of  preaching  Christian 
fundamentals,  60;  on  Sa- 
tan's attacks,  77;  on  wis- 
dom of  preaching  Christ, 
82;    curse    of    clamor    for 

203 


rights,  143;  weakness  of 
modern  church,  150;  unit 
of  spiritual  power,  175», 
work  of  church,  179;  old 
faith  and  new,  185 

Brown,  Charles  R.,  social 
value  of  Puritan's  religion, 
132 

Burr,  Aaron,  personal  de- 
cision concerning  the  Chris- 
tian life,  53 

Bushnell,  Horace,  on  proba- 
tionary character  of  life, 
102;  one  chance  better 
than  many,  109 

Caird,  Principal,  on  the  spir- 
itual life,  26;  religious  prog- 
ress, 30,  31 

Calvary,  on  preaching,  85; 
meaning  of,  94 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  rela- 
tion of  belief  and  prac- 
tice, 47 

Certainties,  the  age's  need 
of,  84 

Chalmers,  Thomas,  account 
of  conversion,  196 

Character,  two  classes  of,  163 

Christ,  Jesus,  character  of 
public  ministry,  65;  tempn 
tation,  75;  preaching,  82, 
88;  on  following,  82;  and 
individual,  181 

Christian,  the,  15,  16,  26; 
trying  to  be  a,  27;  differ- 
ence between  Christian  and 
non-Christian,  31;  spirit  of, 
as  depicted  in  New  Testa- 
ment, 184 

Christianity;  the  Christian 
life,  10,  28,  32,  143;  mod- 
ern modifications  of,  14, 
31,  95;  evangelical,  15;  con- 


S04 


INDEX 


tradiction  between  mod- 
ern trends  in,  16,  17;  New 
Testament  definition,  28; 
according  to  Wesley,  125; 
as  interpreted  in  past,  144; 
social  mission  of,  180;  mis- 
sionary character  of,  182; 
ministry  to  individual,  193 

Church,  the;  challenge,  11; 
forced  option  in  work  of 
reconstruction,  13,  17;  faith 
of,  17;  decadence  or,  19ff.; 
relation  to  present  age,  61; 
primary  business  of,  62; 
rural  church  program, 
67;  lack  of  sincerity,  90, 
150;  selfishness,  119;  Wes- 
ley's idea  of,  121;  formal, 
150;  weakness  of  modern, 
151,  164,  184;  needs  of 
modern,  159,  198;  biblical 
idea  of,  163;  main  business, 
175,  180,  182;  widening 
vision,  176;  activities,  177; 
needs,  198 

Clarke,  William  Newton,  on 
holiness  of  God,  36;  man's 
idea  of  God,  104 

Coe,  George  A.,  on  test  of 
religious  values,  133 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  on 
unused  truths,  50 

Communion  with  God, 
preacher's  need  of,  65,  68 

Compromise,  spirit  of.  111 

Consciousness,  social,  bene- 
fits of,  158 

Consecration,  comprehen- 
siveness of,  194 

Conversion  of  individuals, 
64,  175;  preached  by  virile 
church,  150;  modern 
church's  loss  of  faith  in, 
162;  and  social  service,  168; 
social  meaning  of,  194; 
Chalmers,  196 

Covenant,  the  Half- Way,  163 


Crane,  Stephen,  the  Red 
Badge  of  Courage,  74 

Danner,  J.  Le  Moyne,  The 
Christian  life,  10,  26 

Doctrine,  simplicity  in,  83 

Dogma,  need  of,  84 

Drummond,  Henry,  question 
to  students,  28;  relation  of 
theology  to  life,  103 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  analysis 
of  his  own  age,  118;  re- 
ligious ideal,  119;  interpre- 
tation of  salvation,  122; 
Christian  practice,  124; 
character,  134 

Evangelicalism,  strength  of, 
168 

Evolution,  effect  upon  mod- 
ern belief,  14 

Faith,  saving,  15,  82 

Fear,  in  religion,  36,  45;  ap- 
peal to,  42 

Forsyth,  P.  T.,  on  the 
church's  foundation,  10; 
the  church's  faith,  17 

Fosdick,  Harry  Emerson, 
The  war  and  the  Chris- 
tian fundamentals,  82;  the 
trenches  and  the  church 
at  home,  119;  on  self- 
centered  Christianity,  119 

Freemantle,  Canon,  on  the 
design  of  the  church,  178 

Frost,  Timothy  Prescott,  on 
the  nature  of  the  church, 
180 

Garvie,  Principal,  on  the 
Christian  spirit  as  taught 
in  the  New  Testament,  184 

Germany,  apostasy,  103 

God,  severity  of,  37,  113; 
holiness  of,  36;  man's  ac- 
countability to,  102;  mod- 
ern conception  of,  103,  153; 
soldier's  conception  of ,  107; 
lack  of  God  consciousness 
in  modern  world,  112;  and 


INDEX 


205 


reconstruction,  113;  judg- 
ment on  the  Kaiser,  114; 
Puritan  conception  of,  168; 
Kingdom  of,  179;  Presence, 
192;  will  of,  195 

Gordon,  George  A.,  ethical 
character  of  conversion,  91; 
inadequacy  of  modern 
Christianity,  118;  charac- 
teristics of  modern  church, 
164;  kind  of  revival  needed, 
165;  modern  man's  re- 
ligion, 198 

Gospel,  the,  essence  of  evan- 
gelical, 15;  adequate,  82; 
demand  for  simple,  83; 
self-centered,  119;  Wes- 
ley's, 127;  social,  132,  145; 
social  value  of  individ- 
ualistic, 142;  modern  em- 
phases, 157;  individualis- 
tic, 168;  for  age  of  recon- 
struction, 185;  element  of 
timeliness  in  preaching, 
186;  adapting  the,  195 

Green,  J.  R.,  estimate  of 
Wesleyan  revival,  142 

Gunsaulus,  Frank,  Wesley's 
influence,  146 

Hall,  Charles  Cuthbert,  re- 
ligion of  the  eighteenth 
century,  118 

Hell,  preaching  of,  37,  152, 
192 

Hocking,  William  E.,  con- 
cerning religion  in  the 
army,  10;  subconscious 
religion,  13;  the  creed,  16; 
soldier's  idea  of  God,  107 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  leadership 
in  abolition  of  slavery,  139; 
theory  of  sainthood,  169 

Home,  Silvester,  weakness  of 
modern  church,  151; 
church's  loss  of  faith  in 
conversion,  162 

Hoyt,    Arthur   S.,   two   con- 


ceptions of  gospel,  168; 
characteristics  of  age,  186 

Hypocrisy,  in  modern  church, 
111 

Influence,  Wesley's  personal, 
146 

Individual,  the,  interest  in 
personal  destiny,  171;  con- 
version of,  175;  as  social 
unit,  177 

James,  William,  Luther's  con- 
ception of  Christianity,  10; 
on  the  appeal  to  fear,  42; 
neutrality  unrealizable,  52, 
53;  faith  and  action,  124; 
on  saintliness,  134;  ad- 
vance of  liberalism,  156; 
religion  as  concern  over 
personal  destiny,  171 

Jefferson,  Charles  E.,  need 
of  purpose  in  the  minis- 
try, 60 

Johnson,  Samuel,  opinion  of 
Wesley,  136 

Jowett,  John  H.,  on  the  so- 
cial value  of  the  Wesleyan 
revival,  142;  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  modern 
church,  184 

Judgment,  the,  115;  preach- 
ing of,  37;  of  God  on  the 
Kaiser,  114 

Kaiser,  the,  self-deception, 
75;  idea  of  God,  103;  God's 
judgment  on,  114 

Kelley,  William  V.,  the  age's 
need  of  certainties,  84 

King,  Henry  Churchill,  on 
ignoring  truth,  50;  ene- 
mies of  life,  60,  72;  man's 
accountability  to  God,  102; 
on  saving  oneself,  168; 
comprehensiveness  of  con- 
secration, 194;  comprehen- 
siveness of  prayer,  "Thy 
will  be  done,"  195 

Kingdom  of  God,  elements  of. 


206 


INDEX 


progress,  184;  Livingstone's 
devotion  to,  194 

Liberalism,  in  modern  Chris- 
tianity, 156 

Life,  facing  the  facts  of,  72; 
meaning  of,  94,  98;  theol- 
ogy and,  102;  probationary 
character  of,  102,  114;  as 
related  to  conception  of 
God,  109;  narrowness  of 
modern,  188,  190 

Livingstone,  David,  conse- 
cration, 194 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  on  sin,  82 

Love,  the  fruit  of  religion,  143 

Man,  accountability  to  God, 
102;  common  man's  con- 
ception of  God,  105,  106; 
a  religious  man,  172 

Mathews,  Shailer,  on  Prot- 
estantism's danger,  159; 
strength  of  evangelicalism, 
168;  modern  demand  for 
elemental  religion,  189 

Methodism,  Wesley's  ideal, 
121 

Mills,  Jacob,  religious  expe- 
rience, 26 

Ministry,  the  Christian,  es- 
sential characteristics,  61; 
perils  of,  65;  a  vital  min- 
istry, 66,  69;  transforma- 
tion in  Chalmers,  196 

Morgan,  G.  Campbell,  eth- 
ical character  of  revivals, 
132 

Morley,  Lord  John,  on  be- 
nevolent spirit  of  modern 
world,  158 

Motives  mixed,  55 

Neutrality,  impossibility  of, 
51 

New  Testament,  value  to 
preacher,  39;  teaching  con- 
cerning hell  and  the  judg- 
ment, 40,  41;  teaching  con- 
cerning life,  98 


Nicol,  W.  Robertson,  on  the 
importance  of  preaching, 
60 

Odell,  J.  H.,  on  elimination 
of  the  supernatural  from 
the  Bible,  13 

Other- worldliness,  modern 
need  of,  191 

Parkhurst,  Charles  H.,  con- 
cerning modern  idea  of 
God,  154 

Petrarch,  on  religion  in  six- 
teenth century,  45 

Peabody,  F.  G.,  the  new 
obedience,  82;  prudential- 
ism,  122;  personal  virtue 
and  national  welfare,  137; 
provincialisTi  in  religion, 
156;  essentials  of  service, 
174;  duty  and  power,  174; 
religious  problem  of  pres- 
ent century,  179 

Phelps,  Austin,  biblical  idea 
of  church,  163 

Phillips,  Wendell,  consecra- 
tion to  God,  53 

Power,  spiritual,  175 

Prayer,  and  spiritual  sin- 
cerity, 80 

Preaching,  on  hell  and  the 
judgment,  37,  38;  charac- 
ter of  modern,  38,  40,  154; 
need  of  balanced,  48;  of 
Christian  truths,  60;  value 
of,  60;  present  need  of,  62; 
true  preaching,  82,  162; 
essentials,  84;  irrelevant, 
85;  simplicity  in,  87;  Chal- 
mers, 196 

Presumption,  sin  of.  111 

Probation,  life  as,  102,  114 

Protestantism,  origin  of,  46; 
danger  to,  159 

Prudentialism,  122 

Pulpit,  weakness  of  modern, 
161 

Puritan,  religion,  132 


INDEX 


207 


Purpose,  minister's  need  of,  60 

Rauschenbusch,  Walter,  on 
spiritual  sincerity  and  so- 
cial renewal,  78;  the  begin- 
nings of  social  religion,  132; 
Christianity  of  past,  144; 
religious  progress  and  ethi- 
cal standards,  145;  conver- 
sion and  social  service,  in- 
dividualistic and  social 
elements  in  gospel,  168 

Reactions,  in  religion,  46; 
moral,  54,  55 

Reconstruction,  need  of  God- 
consciousness  in,  113;  place 
of  personal  repentance  in, 
132;  gospel  for  age  of,  185; 
characteristics  of  age,  187 

Reformation,  Protestant,  19, 
20 

Religion,  sub-conscious,  13; 
in  the  army,  13,  43;  mod- 
ern, 13,  14,  118;  fear  in, 
36;  reactions  in,  46;  oppo- 
sition of  social  idealists  to, 
56;  power  of,  72;  funda- 
mentals, 82;  joy  in,  96;  and 
the  war,  97;  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  118;  self- 
centered,  119;  prudential- 
ism  in,  122;  personal,  129; 
Puritan,  132;  test  of,  133; 
definition,  172;  as  inner 
experience,  172;  demand 
for  elemental,  189;  self- 
surrender  in,   193 

Repentance,  and  social  prog- 
ress, 132 

Repplier,  Agnes,  on  impossi- 
bility of  neutrality,  51 

Revivals,  ethical  character, 
132;  social  value  of  Wes- 
leyan,  142;  kind  needed, 
165 

Robertson,  Frederic,  on  so- 
cial mission  of  Christian- 
ity. 180 


Rutherford,  Samuel,  on  un- 
sound work  in  salvation,  26 

Saintliness,  134 

Salvation,  soldiers'  need  of, 
12;  Wesley  on  conditions 
of,  12,  21;  a  spiritual  re- 
birth, 15;  unsound  work  in, 
26;  Principal  Caird  on,  26; 
Andrew  Murray  on,  26; 
active  and  passive  elements 
in,  29;  working  out,  30;  need 
of  preaching,  63;  of  world, 
64;  moral  process  in,  91;  as 
interpreted  by  Edwards 
and  Wesley,  122;  individ- 
ual, 138,  155,  170;  condi- 
tions of,  170;  the  business 
of  the  church,  182 

Self-deception,  the  basis  of 
sin,  73;  cure  for,  78 

Self-surrender,  193 

Sentimentalism,  in  religion, 
14 

Sermon,  final  value  of,  87 

Service,  inner  experience  es- 
sential to,  174;  elements 
in,  175 

Severity  of  God,  37,  113 

Simplicity,  in  doctrine,  83; 
in  preaching,  87 

Sin,  self-deception  in,  73;  the 
sense  of,  76,  89;  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  on,  82;  grace  and, 
82;  need  of  preaching,  89; 
root  of  social  problem,  128 

Sincerity,  need  of  moral,  72; 
and  social  renewal,  78;  lack 
of,  in  church,  90 

Speer,  Robert  E.,  on  fear  in 
religion,  36;  two  classes  in 
society,  50 

Spirit,  the,  gospel  of,  198 

Stars  and  Stripes,  the,  edi- 
torial on  salvation,  11 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  the 
cross,  94 


208 


INDEX 


Supernatural,  elimination 
from  the  Bible,  13,  14 

Theology,  and  salvation,  91; 
and  the  war,  97;  and  life, 
102 

Tolstoi,  Count  Leo,  on  the 
meaning  of  life,  94 

Trust,  in  salvation,  33 

Truth,  unused,  50 

Tuttle,  Dr.,  on  preaching 
of  judgment,  37,  152 

Unselfishness,  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards's, 131;  John  Wes- 
ley's, 135;  revealed  by  the 
war,  187 

Value,  social,  of  Jonathan 
Edwards's  work,  139;  of 
John  Wesley's  work,  139 

Vision,  spiritual,  176 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,  on 
modern  social  order,  21 

War,  the  world,  dispeller  of 
illusions,  77;  and  Christian 
fundamentals,  82;  and  Cal- 


vary, 85;  and  religion,  97; 
as  inspiration,  99 

Wariness,  spiritual,  79 

Watterson,  Henry,  on  salva- 
tion of  world,  64 

Wesley,  John,  on  salvation  of 
soldiers,  12;  revival,  20; 
personal  experience,  33, 
125;  gospel  as  preached  by, 
121,  129;  divine  sanction 
on  his  work,  132;  charac- 
ter, 135;  social  value  of 
work,  141;  personal  influ- 
ence, 146 

Winchester,  Caleb  T.,  gospel 
as  preached  by  Wesley, 
129;  divine  sanction  on 
Wesley's  work,  132;  Wes- 
ley's character,  134;  defini- 
tion of  religious  man,  172 

World,  modern,  sins  of.  111; 
law  of  God-consciousness 
in,  112 

Worldliness,  of  modem 
church,  164 


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